Fall
by JonasGrant
Summary: A shot at a Mass Effect/ Warhammer Crossover focusing on political implications and the resulting arms race... And apparently a source of unlimited catharsis to fans of both franchises. I used to moderate reviews, but then the review section is getting to be more interesting than the story itself, so, enjoy, I guess... -Image by Renegade64-
1. Chapter 1

**Well, seems my intro was making some people mad. I usually don't care but this is getting old, nobody reads the story and they all just try to start an argument. It won't work. You disagree on something? send me references that prove me wrong, I'll send you references that prove me right. If your references are more solid than mine, I'll change it. Otherwise, you're just wasting both out time.**

**So, this is written first person present tense, love it or hate it, I'm working on improving it right now. Needs better details.**

**More accurately, you'll be following Lance Corporal Adam Sinclair, twenty during Mass Effect 3, twenty eight in this story, officially recruited in N7 during the fight with the Reapers and trained on the field by now deceased Lieutenant Carol Lenihan.**

**All of this happens eight earth years (From Adam's point of view, with time dilatation and gravitational changes, this can range from five to twelve years in some places) after their arrival in the Warhammer 'vers, years during which ships were repaired, casualties were replaced and, in some case, populations flourished (Krogans, especially, now count fifteen times as many warriors as they used to, thanks to the genophage being cured, vat grown 'Pure' Krogans and Wrex's wise leadership. Wanted to call it a Dic-tatorship, but not everyone would get it.) Everyone was far too busy rebuilding to go out there and explore the galaxy or start trouble with their allies, but galaxy's a small place and Murphy always finds a way to screw with you.**

**Let's get to it.**

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****The elderly man stood straight and tall, arms folded behind his back, looking over the assembled crowd. Some of the longer lived members had known this warrior as a force of destruction, unstoppable, unrelenting and unforgiving, but the Cadian, powerful as he was, could not fight nature; his skin was wrinkled, tanned like old leather, his hands shaky and distorted by years of use as deadly weapons and he needed a cane to hold himself up. The man would not live another year.

"Old friends, old foes and anyone in between, I thank you for taking the time to make this trip. I know you are all very busy with the war, but this is something that should have been done long ago; we are here to honour those who laid down their lives for the greater good as they saw it, those who gave everything and demanded nothing in return, those we used to call criminals, exiles or terrorists, those we said brought shame to our people."

He cleared his throat before continuing.

"They were not heroes and never claimed to be, they did what they did by necessity or for personal reason, but their sacrifice is very real and their courage demands respect. They fought when we cowered, stood where we ran and died as we lived on, knowing they would get no recognition or gratitude for their actions, yet doing what needed to be done." There was a slight pause in the speech as the man waited for the audience to recall the deeds of those he spoke of, then spoke again, his voice as loud as it was when he ordered troops around, "This is the true measure of a man; willingly sacrifice all he has, all he is, not to follow orders or gain a seat in the afterlife, not to have a statue in his image or a book written on his life, but because he felt it was right, and believed in it deeply enough to kill and be killed for that concept..."

He shielded his mouth with his sleeve and coughed in it; a long and raspy choking cough that left dark red stains on the grey fabric.

"Those men and women deserved more than we gave them, more than a speech in the burning sands of a dead planet, but they will never get it, they will never hear those they saved from oblivion tell them they are grateful for their actions, they died, we live and the only gratitude we can offer them is to never let anyone doubt that they did the right choice, never let anyone forget them..." He bent over and grabbed an handful of sand, "...for the sand of this world drank deep of their blood and the stones witnessed their bravery, they will remember, long after we have passed away, and our children's children have forgotten us, the sands of this world will remain soaked with the blood of those who took a stand for their convictions."

He drew a flask from his coat's inner pocket and voided the golden liquid in the burning sands.

"Wish we'd have shared that drink, I miss you all." He whispered, a tear rolling on his cheek, swirling around scars and wrinkles until it also fell in the sand.

The crowd remained quiet as it dispersed. No clapping, no talking, the air was heavy and everyone was in a hurry to leave this cursed planet.

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**Citadel**

**December 20th**

**2142**

The Batarian engineer is known as Charon; like everyone in the 139, he uses only his code name to go around. Mine is Sinner, so this situation is pretty ironical: 'A Sinner and Charon meet in a Citadel bar, so Charon tells the Sinner…'

"Excuse me, human," his deep gravelly voice continues, not as hostile as expected, "Is that an M-76?"

I need to think about it for a while, the machine gun on my back was my instructor's, I know it's a Revenant, know it was never modified to receive thermal clips and that it never, ever overheats. Maybe I'm just that good, but I genuinely think this gun loves violence more than I do.

I was tracked as a marksman before Carole got killed, then I swapped my Mattock for her Revenant on a hunch and that gun landed me a job as a squad heavy weapons specialist, which meant drawing attention, which meant switching to heavier armor, which meant bench pressing more to be able to move in said armor, which made me bigger, which made me look meaner and most likely contributed to getting me into JTF 139.

Back to business, the Revenant is indeed designated M-76, so I nod, "Yeah, what about it?"

I don't like Batarians; too many eyes, never know which ones to stare at. I don't like much anyone not human. Except Asari, for obvious reasons.

He sits on the stool to my right and order two glasses of Batarian Ale. As the bartender cracks open the bottle, he turns his head to me and smiles, "Rare gun, thought only officers were issued this kind of hardware…"

He's right, of course, but the lack of thermal clips in this thing had it dismissed as an obsolete weapon and I was authorized to keep it, "True," I confess, "but this one's not exactly up to specs, outdated, they say." I scoff and sip on the newly filled glass. It tastes like smoke, blood and vinegar; I love the stuff instantly. "Classic, I say."

He sips on his own drink and nods. He packs an Eviscerator shotgun and Carnifex heavy pistol. Fuck the eyes, a guy carrying guns like that is all right in my book. I buy another round and we talk about the thermal clip concept. Batarians refused to switch, although he admits being able to just reload your weapon when needed has quite a few perks.

"Yeah, it's good for short, brutal skirmishes" I admit, sipping my glass slower this time, "but on long engagements, when supply lines are blown to shit and you're alone with your gun, having to count your shots is a pain in the ass."

"Damn right it is!" A krogan to my left roars. He's from the 139 as well, almost everyone in the bar is. He shows us his Claymore shotgun. New model, uses thermal clips, but he jacked the thing to fire with the same kickback as the old model, meaning it fires bigger pellets at greater speed.

Of course, he wants to show us the result and, before I can argue, fires the gun at some fancy glass statue of a Turian in the rear left corner of the bar. The pellets grind the glass to a fine mist and bounce off with a loud set of pings and whistles that causes a third of the patrons to dive for cover; the third not part of the 139. It's not battlefield experience or whatever, it's just that we are all wearing armor with kinetic shields, they're not.

See, that's the reason why very little civilians come to this bar anymore; Krogans with shotguns.

"Don't do that again," I hiss, slapping his shotgun down, "You'll scare the hookers."

Both my new friends laugh and the word 'hooker' seems to attract a pair of Turian and a Salarian to our little gang. Maybe the gun demonstration has something to do with it too.

The Turians are packing a Vindicator assault rifle and Geth pulse rifle respectively. I got no opinion on these guns, they get the job done and, despite all my bitching, that's all a good warrior should need, they just don't speak lots about their owner. The two go straight to the Krogan and bombard him with questions about his Claymore, to which the green scaled warrior proudly answer in many details.

The Salarian, however, shows more of himself in his choice of armament; he's got a Kishock harpoon rifle slung on his back, that's a sign that someone means business. Probably STG, certainly hard ass.

I extend a hand and shake his two long, slender fingers. "I'm Sinner, this is Charon." The Batarian only nods.

"Pleased to meet you." He blurts out, almost comically. Salarians have a funny way of talking and acting, but they shouldn't be underestimated; this guy with his ragged rifle could probably beat the young Krogan to my right in open combat. "Part of team…"

Takes both Charon and I a second to figure out he's asking us what team we're in. I'm 101st company, first platoon, Epsilon squad, red team. Charon is 101st company, third platoon, Delta squad, yellow team.

No clue about the Krogan. Don't think I've ever seen him before, so he must not be from our company. Then again, I don't know the whole company.

"Ah, shore leave. Ends in two days." He ponders, "Going back to Tuchanka aboard _ACRS Anderson _for six month tour, hunt down Cerberus cells. Right?"

We both nod. It's not classified or anything, we've been at it for almost a decade, if Cerberus doesn't know we're looking for them, some drunken bar talk isn't going to tip them off.

"Ah… Not anymore." With that, he types a few lines of code on his Omni-tool and mine beeps as it receives new briefing data.

Derelic starship found by STG scouts, kilometers long, matches no known profile, multiple living organism detected, signs of ongoing battle within the ship, _ACRS Anderson _re-assigned to investigate.

"When are we leaving?" Stupid question, I know, normally we'd be getting a proper briefing and all once we're in the ship, but normally we don't get Salarians with Turian escort delivering mission orders to us in some dirty citadel bar.

"Now." And that explains it, "Tried to contact everyone by suit communicator. Didn't work. Operators dislike keeping helmets on during shore leave, apparently."

"Hard to get drunk otherwise." Charon defends, downing his glass in one swig and shoving on his dome-shaped helmet.

He doesn't sound too happy, I guess I'm not either, we just spent the last month hopping from a mass relay to another, patrolling Associated Citadel Races space. Even the 139 needs some time off now and then, damnit.

Actually, the whole concept of the JTF 139 is a force capable of reacting to any and all threats within hours, both by garrisoning troops and by having a fast response force ready at all time. To achieve this, we established a rotation system between platoons, but it seems this is an all hands on deck situation, so I down my own glass and hit the ground like a sack of bricks.

Not my fault, the room started spinning!


	2. Chapter 2

**A/N: Guh, this is ridiculous, I will answer those reviewers who make actual good points, the rest can can it for all I care, if you want to bash on me, sign your god damned reviews so I can at least keep the argument out of my author's notes.**

**Now I'll have to make something very clear to people: Warhammer is nowhere near as overpowered as you seem to think. Most stats are not that farfetched , you only get that over-the-top feeling because of shitty writer who can't follow their own fluff (*Cough*-Ward-*Cough-). Astarte are said to be eight to ten times the strength of an average man. You think, 'Oh my god, that's massive!' Nope, it's not, I do believe the writers forgot to do the researches as it makes them slightly weaker than a silverback gorilla, thus, I'd say Orks are about as strong as gorillas and still well within the capacities of a Krogan and far beneath those of a Yahg.**

**I don't get the logic of those saying the council races would lose instantly, of course they're at a disadvantage but that's the point of the story, and no amount of arguing is going to convince me every races of Mass Effect have less of a chance compared to fucking Taus or Orks.**

**So, no, I didn't make a whole galaxy fall into another, if you look at the Mass Effect map, there's well under a hundred mass relays, that's under a hundred solar systems, it's nothing on the galactic scale, and this is a whole galaxy we're talking about with people travelling through an alternate reality from one place to another, the possibilities of anything accidently bumping into them are infinitely small, to the point just eight years is ridiculously short.**

**Is it so hard to understand that I want to write stories about people overcoming the odds, fighting back against forces infinitely superior and trying to carve themselves a place in the world? I could just make the ACR be crushed by the Tyranids in a matter of days, or have them control the reapers and take over the whole galaxy, but there are plenty of stompfics out there, this one is about cultural shock, collaboration, diplomacy and adaptation. You want the warm feeling you get from seeing your favourite race stomping some poor bastard? Write your own damn fic and make it happen.**

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**Virmire-class Destroyer **_**ACRS Anderson**_**.**

**Medical Center.**

Everything's blurry and voices echo around my skull as if underwater. Lots of white and blue floating around, steady beeping and a distinct antiseptic smell too. This is the Andy's med bay. I spend a lot of time here, although this could be just about any med bay, there is one sure sign I'm in the _Anderson:_

Our ship doctor's a Krogan, Razor, an old and scarred veteran of the Krogan rebellion, he studied medicine with the Salarians in the hope of one day curing the genophage. I spend a lot of time here and he's pretty talkative, for a Krogan.

"What the fuck happened?" I groan, trying to get up despite my head being filled with ground glass, "Did something explode?"

The world spins when I sit up, but it all falls back in place soon enough. Most nurse or doctor would tell me to lie down, not strain myself. Not Razor.

"Suck it up, soldier, you're not injured, just hungover." What? I had only two drinks! "Batarian booze is strong enough to be used as medical antiseptic, you're lucky your spleen is still intact."

"I don't feel all that lucky, doc," my head pounds some more as I get on my feet. I'm still in my N7 Defender suit, been in it for a while, judging from the smell. "how long was I out?"

"A day and a half," The Krogan in a lab gown growls, now apparently filling out paperwork on his private terminal, "pain in the ass, had to plug you to a damned IV to keep you watered."

There is indeed a needle stuck in the back of my hand. Veins there are small, Krogans are big and not the most delicate creatures, I'm impressed with Razor. Happens all the time, he once performed a flawless dental filling job on a Salarian where none of his STG colleagues wanted to try it out.

"So, what's the news then?" Having been out for so long doesn't faze me all that much, I once drunk Ryncol and was sick for a whole week, only problem is that I most likely missed most of the briefing and gearing up, although I was spared the drills and pre-op inspections. Probably missed dinner too.

Food. Damn I'm hungry. The kitchen is right outside the med bay's window and I can see our Hanar cook keeping himself busy.

Of course, military protocols and all that, I turn to Razor and clear my throat; "Am I cleared to…"

"Yeah, yeah," he growls, waving me away without looking, "get lost."

The Hanar notices me as soon as I go through the door and, by the time I'm there, has already prepared a thick yellow soup with a cheese slice and some brown bread cake thing.

"This one hears you were intoxicated by Batarian alcoholic beverages, this one advises against eating richer food for a time, as your stomach would immediately void itself."

'Don't eat too much or you'll puke your guts', got it.

There are twenty tables or so, an amazing number of seats considering the size of the kitchen, but most of the chow are nutrient-rich goo, pre-made soup or solid protein bread, nothing that requires actual cooking. On the Andy, we have an Hanar cook doing his best to put some taste in the whole and going as far as to smuggle fresh supplies on board, but most other JTF 139 warships have to make due with tasteless crap for most of their tours.

I eat quickly. Most likely, we're a few hours from deployment and I need to go get my gear. My guns, knives, grenades and demo charges were all removed when I passed out, leaving me with just armor and a concealed Shuriken pistol.

"This is Captain Kolis," A Drell voice booms through the whole ship, making me choke on my soup, "we have reached the derelict, given the size of the ship, Colonel Massani and I have agreed to deploy the whole Company in platoon sized task forces. Vorcha and Krogan regular troops are en route to help secure the ship, but in the meantime, I ask that all hands prepare for boarding. That is all."

Aw fuck.

Armory is on the top deck, behind the CIC, right next to the labs, that means taking an elevator all the way up, make my way through the huge room full of beeping, yelling of orders and status reports, then reach the armory, filled with grunts and scientists testing new weapons -Loud new weapons- the whole while carrying around the mother of all headaches. And don't even get me started with bright lights, seems everywhere you look on this ship, you get spotlights shining in your face, or run face to face with Geth units.

Fucking flashlight faces. Saw a turian quartermaster who use a Geth head as desk lamp once.

This ship is a destroyer version of the Normandy-class frigate, they just scaled everything up, but they realized having multiple elevators instead of a single huge one was necessary.

The door still opens to a cabin filled with Asari commandos and Drell assassins, not the biggest or most awkward members of the 139 to be around, but any of them can flay me alive with their mind, this is very close quarter and I admittedly smell very, very bad.

I step in and do my best not to blush like a school kid when the Asari and Drell closer to me exchange a puzzled look.

One of the Asari seems to be a matriarch, the others, I couldn't tell. Only way to tell how old an Asari is, that I know, is breast size, and I'm not about to investigate that too close; flaying alive thing and all.

People think biotics can read minds, stupid people, I mean. I served with enough biotics to know that they don't hear though, see the future or influence minds, all they do is use mass manipulation to throw shit around, crush people, set them on fire or create black holes.

I wish they could just read my mind, honestly, but when you look at it from a more mundane perspective, being biotic is really just a perk, like being smart or fast, you can use it and it will overshadow some other skills, or you don't, and you develop the rest to compensate.

I'm no biotic and I'm no tech, but I'm not just some grunt either, wouldn't be N7 if I was just muscles and guns; I use heavy armor, heavy weapons, high explosives and usually improve that with whatever gizmos I can whip up, buy, requisition or just salvage, not just special bullets, shields and explosives, I also volunteered to get synthetic skin weaves to boost my healing abilities, same kind of synthetic incrusts in my bone and, last but not least, had microfibers weaved into my muscles, increasing strength drastically and reducing the risk of me tearing up something if I get too confident, combine that with my N7 Defender suit's new onboard life support systems, movement assistance and big ass armor plates, and you've got yourself some fucking results.

I make it sound impressive, but such upgrades are standard issue in the 139, more so in humans, Asari and Drell than anyone else, because of our 'Soft' physiology, whatever that means.

Anyway, all this to say; Asari, Krogan, Turian, Human, stronger, faster, bigger bones, thicker hides, all bullshit.

None of this matters in the long run, all that matters is determination. How much do you want the other guy dead? If you want to kill him more than he wants to kill you, you will succeed and he will fail, it's not just about self-preservation or hatred, I killed many Krogans much better trained, armed and armored than I, but not because of some 'never say die' crap or righteous determination, just because I focused on the mission and shut off everything else; ethics, fear, long term repercussions, political impact, primal impulses, even anger, all shut down, leaving only me, the enemy and the mission.

You start thinking too much, plotting too much or just worrying too much on the field and you'll miss a detail, maybe just a glint from a sniper scope, or a trip wire, or maybe you'll outright miss a secondary path to your objective and get killed because of it.

Call it determination, focus, pragmatism, renegade attitude, it remains the one thing that has allowed us squishy humans to go up against Krogans and win.

The door opens to the CIC and we all file out, heading straight for the armory. The commandos will be sent in first, most likely, they want to perform some last minute checks on their gear.

The CIC is buzzing with life, computers beeping confirmations or denial of received command, VIs reporting on the different aspects of the unidentified ships –It's huge, very well armed and has thick shields- and the Drell captain in the middle of it, standing over the galaxy map and… Well, he doesn't yell, his tone remains calm and polite, but he somehow manages to be heard over all the commotion.

"We need the Thanix batteries ready to fire on a moment's notice, Lieutenant S'voni, please take care of it. Ensign Lovell, please ready escape routes and be ready to pull us out on my mark…" He turns to me and his big black eyes widen, "Soldier! Come here, please."

Hell, what now?

As I make my way through the crowded room, the back of my mind screams possible issues to me; 'You woke up too late and missed the N7 deployment!', 'You're fired for saying something dumb when you blanked out.', 'You don't have any pants on!'

I look down despite myself. Massive red and black armor plates, enough holsters, pouches and sheathes to supply a small platoon and a lot of scratches. Yup, I'm dressed alright.

Guess whatever's going on will come out on its own.

I slap the Captain a salute and stand at attention as he eyes me down.

"Sinner," He finally exclaims, recognizing me or reading my tag, "I saw your name a few times in mission reports," Drell memory is some scary shit, he cites a few ops where I was separated or had to operate on my own, take my own decisions or my opinion was somehow required, "It is good that you arrived when you did, if you could wait for me in the briefing room, I will have a special task for you."

I blink a few times. My head is killing me, all this beeping doesn't mix well with hangover and this guy is just fucking up my brain. I'm just a random grunt who walked out of an elevator looking like shit, he didn't know my call sign before he did his memory voodoo shit and now he's got a special task for me?

"Aye, aye, Captain!" I salute again and leave. I'd prefer to arm myself right away and be done with it; I'm specialized in long lasting engagement, which requires a lot of pre-op calibrations and resupplying.

I need to go through the armory to reach the briefing room anyway, so I head straight to my locker, on the wall opposite to the door, and pick up whatever gear I was carrying when I passed out. I always keep a small amount of ordnance with me, in case something bad happens, but this is about a third of what I'd use in a real engagement. The gunshots coming from the shooting range to the right are not only deafening, they hammer through my brain like sledgehammers.

Let'S focus on gearing up; DX-108 shaped charges, M-76 Revenant machine gun, N7 Eagle heavy pistol and thermal clips for it, one Kukri combat knife strapped to my left shoulder pad, M-66 Inferno grenades and my helmet, which I looted off a Cerberus Assault Trooper a while back. Cost me quite a few credits to have someone make it compatible with N7 armor, but I like the result, the whole faceless helmet of doom thing and all.

Then, I squeeze past the Drell and Asari gearing up at their own lockers and walk through the airlock linking the briefing room, armory and laboratories.

The room is halfway down the hall and to the right, but before I reach it, the door to the labs, straight ahead, opens to let three humanoids through; a human wearing standard alliance armor but no insignias, an Asari wearing some ornate silver suit with glowing blue incrusts and the captain, wearing… What am I? A fashion critique? He's wearing his fucking dress uniform, nothing to say about it.

"Sinner?" He asks as we get closer. I nod once and he says something to his friends. I'm too far to hear, but the human seems okay with it while the Asari just keeps eyeing me with a funny look in her face, like she just licked something sour.

Not my smell, my helmet is sealing it in now. Such fun.

I reach the door before them and stand at attention next to it. You'd think an N7 operator would be big on military protocols, but I was made N7 on the field during the Reaper invasion and the JTF 139 has a different command chain.

In any event, I let them through first and walk in just before the door closes.

The briefing room is actually more like a theater and is often used as such for speeches, play or vid projections. Here, there are about twenty people scattered around the brightly lit circular room; four Krogan, two Salarian, four Turian, a Yahg, two Quarian, three Geth platforms and two Batarian.

No human or Asari beyond the ones with the captain.

I don't know why I'm here, but I spot Charon –or a Batarian with the same shotgun- standing next to the stage, talking to a Quarian Marine.

They stop talking as I approach them and Charon takes a second to recognize me. Well, not really recognize, he just reads my name tag.

"Sinner," he nods and the Quarian's helmet tilts slightly to the side, "glad to see you pulled through."

I scoff and we shake hands. "Yeah, still feel like shit though," a Krogan yells something, somewhere behind me and I turn to see a heavily scarred Turian and blue eyed Krogan shaking hands like only old war buddies do.

"Grunt!" The Turian laughs, "I thought's you'd be on Tuchanka, stealing all the ladies from Wrex or something."

The Krogan laughs and shake his massive head, "It's been a while, Garrus." He scoffs, thinking for a second before continuing, "Last I heard, you and Tali were… Calibrating together. "

I never thought I'd hear someone use calibration as an innuendo, and I'm still not sure I have.

Whatever. "So, Charon," I speak, getting back to the Batarian, "any idea why we're here?"

"None," He admits, "they called me here in the middle of my squad's mission planning, said I was re-affected, classified stuff. What about you?"

Good question, what about me? "The Captain saw me passing by the CIC and told me to get my ass in here." Pretty much the only explanation I have myself, seems to amuse him though.

"Seriously? With your hangover, it's a wonder you're still standing..."

The Quarian clears his throat and we both turn to him.

"Captain's about to speak."

Indeed, the Drell is now standing on the stage, waiting for everyone to shut up. Doesn't take long.

"Thank you for coming, ladies and gentlemen," His voice is even, collected, boring, "I know this meeting is something unusual, but we find ourselves in an equally unusual situation."

He nods and the holo-projector above the stage lights up, showing a crescent-shaped spaceship. The center of the crescent flashes blue twice and an audio recording begins.

It's nonsense, blabbering punctuated and articulated like a language, but none my auto-translator can comprehend. Weird thing is, the voice sounds human. Female, not very young nor aged, tense, but not scared. A soldier.

She's broadcasting a mayday, even I understand that.

"Analysis confirmed this individual is a female homo-sapiens, thirty years old, subject to high levels of stress and sleep deprivation. This language matches no known human dialect, but this is irrelevant…" Red dots appear all over the ship," We have detected thousands of unknown life signs and signs of an ongoing battle between them and…" Blue, yellow, green and purple dots blink into existence, all focused around the signal's origin, "It seems there are over five additional groups of unknown species fighting alongside the humans. This is unexpected and no one in the Citadel knows what to make of it, thus why you will be sent ahead to establish contact with the defenders…"

The Asari with silver armor groans and biotically lifts herself on the stage. "Every second we waste speaking about this, people die." She turns to us, "Anyone has questions to ask?" Even if I did, I'd keep my mouth shut, everyone else agrees, it seems, "Good, let's move."


	3. Chapter 3

"Sinner, you alright? You don't look so hot." Vakarian is some sort of hot shot Turian officer, fought alongside Shepard from the start, although he's not JTF, so I got no clue why he's here. Come to think of it, I got no clue what I'm doing here either.

Wait, if he noticed I'm feeling like shit despite the helmet, I must be in a worst shape than I though.

The Kodiak shuttle feels very small with four Krogan crammed in it; good thing the Yagh and half the forces took another shuttle or I'd probably be probing Garru Vakarian's rectum right now.

"Don't believe what they tell you, sir," I groan through the rattling of kinetic shield struggling with the derelict's, "Batarian ale is not good for your health." The shuttle shakes furiously, still struggling to push through the shields.

Vakarian's helmet bobs slightly as he chuckles, "Yeah, Turians are Dextro-amino acid, drinking that will kill me."

Didn't know that, didn't really have much reason to care until now, my platoon is all human and Krogan. "Almost killed me too, sir." Is all I can answer.

"You combat ready?"

No, I'm not. I'm hungry, thirsty, tired and my head is throbbing, but all of this is offset by one thing: I'm N7. "I've been better," lying just isn't my style, neither is complaining, "but my real problem is this whole diplomatic op thing." gotta weight my words now, let's not get fired over some misunderstood orders.

The rattling diminish and Garrus shrugs, "Yeah, the Council's got something in mind and they're not telling us, but that's nothing new, you being here, however, is pretty weird…" He thinks about it for a moment, then seems to realize something, "I think they want to keep humans out of it as much as possible; they sent a human Spectre, we know for sure there are humans on the ship…"

Wouldn't that be a reason for them to send more of us? Maybe they want to be careful, in case the humans are actually the attackers, or some other shit like that. As for me, who knows? Maybe the Captain figured no human at all outside the Spectre would make it look like they were being racist, or maybe someone got sick and when he saw me, he figured I'd do the trick.

In any event, it's probably above my pay grade, so fuck it. I'll shoot what I'm told to shoot and go where I'm told to go, anything else is just going to get me distracted.

The shaking has stopped; we're through their shields.

"Prepare for EVA, everyone!" Vakarian announces, having noticed the change as well. A second later, all lights switch to green and the blue Krogan, Grunt, opens the portside hatch. That's not much warning and the decompression nearly sweep me off my feet. A Salarian is almost thrown against the massive ship's hull, just outside the door, but rights himself at the last second and lands on his feet.

I use my magnetic boots to hold onto the ship after leaping out of the shuttle, but I'm not sure what the Salarians are using. Mass effect fields, maybe, or just magnetic boots like me. Doesn't matter much.

We clear the way and more soldiers pour out of the shuttle. Normally, we'd have an established deployment strategy, pre-decided teams and entry points, but this is a botched operation if I ever saw one, so I just take a kneel and survey the smooth hull for anything noteworthy.

Many reflective surfaces, portholes, most likely. I could squeeze through, Asaris too, Krogans and Turians, not so sure.

Then, there's some large air intakes… Or propellers? Whatever; four big, rear-facing, circular exhaust things big enough for a Mako to fit through. Might be a good way in, provided it doesn't fry the shit out of us when we get close.

I'm about to report it when my eyes catch a subtle orange glow coming from behind. A Geth is using their version of a circular saw to cut a hole in the hull, with great success.

The second shuttle has unloaded just a dozen meter to my right and the second team is making its way to us now. A Yahg in hard suit is hard to miss, and when it's coming your way, it's hard not to shoot.

My radio clicks and the alien's voice fills my ears, "Don't do anything stupid, soldier."

What do you answer to that? "Sir, I just jumped off a perfectly good shuttle to board a dying pile of junk," They reach us shortly before the Geth completes the hole. "I'm paid to do stupid shit."

The circular chunk of hull is expelled in a geyser of gas. O2, CO2, whatever it is, there was still air in that compartment. Might not be relevant to the mission, sucks to be anyone standing in there, though.

The Yahg is packing a Geth Spitfire heavy weapon, so we let it go in first, closely followed by the Krogans. While they get in, I walk over to the breach and aim my gun downrange, covering the huge aliens filling the wrecked room.

"What's that?" Charon speaks on the team comm, "Kitchen?"

Two rows of electronic furnitures that could be anything from ovens to dishwashers are all that's left in the room, beyond the bulkhead and walls, so it's kind of hard to tell.

"Beats me." I drag myself in after the Krogans and land on the floor pretty roughly. Gravity is slightly higher here than what I'm used to, nothing bad, just feels like I'm wearing heavy clothes.

The Quarians follow me in. Good, I like Quarian Marines, tough bastards, reliable.

Krogans at my front, Quarians at my back, this is looking pretty good.

Don't ask me where she came from, but just as I look back forward, I spot the silver Asari looking straight at me.

Her helmet is expressionless, but everything in her body language says she feels like shooting me here and there.

Was it something I said, or is she just a fucking psycho?

Charon appears in my peripheral vision and is holding his shotgun roughly aimed at her. He felt it too.

Before this can go any further, however, the Yahg, codenamed Freight Train, break in the team wide channel. "Sinner, I need d-charges here."

She heard it too, but doesn't move out of the way, so I need to squeeze past the shit scary Asari and walk up the Yagh, who's steadily becoming less scary than smurfette back there.

I reach the door. Triple locked bulkhead, cut one lock and the other become fused in place. Smart. Means I'll have to use three small charges on each lock and one on the control terminal.

Yaghs know an enormous variety of languages and my ex-girlfriend is deaf, so it seems like a good idea to ask it what just happened in human English sign language, even though I don't expect it to actually answer.

It does, although the smaller number of fingers on its hands makes it pretty nebulous. Something about me talking after the mission, getting her killed, human freedom of speech concept and vampires.

I just sign 'Above my paygrade.' To which that massive alien agrees.

The charges set into a triangular shape on the square door, we all take a step backward and huddle up behind the Krogans.

The blast is barely noticeable, no sound come from it and the bulkhead remains closed, but all three locks were fried and the control panel is gone, replaced by sparkling wires and melted steel.

Salarians get to work on the panel and I open a private channel with the Asari.

I'm no hero, I don't go around spilling bravados and spewing bullets like Shepard did, I use precision and stay quiet most of the time, but I don't bow to anyone, not even biotics; "Listen up, ma'am," Let's keep this civil, "I'm N7, yes, but I'm 139 first, and if you'd taken time to read my file before draggin…"

"I have no interest in you or your file, human, just do your task and be silent."

I walk up to the bitch and stop only when our helmets are two centimeters apart. I'm bigger, much so, taller too, but she's not impressed. I don't expect her to be; muscles are tools, nothing more, having them doesn't mean I know how to use 'em, but I do, I was a Sniper before being a gunner and a shock trooper, I know myself, my body and my limits, and this bitch is well within my ability to take down.

"Do your part, I'll do mine," I take a step back, "but if you are going to shoot me in the back, pray to your goddess you don't miss, 'cause I'm not going down without a fight."

She's about to say something again, but the others are looking at us now, wondering what we're doing. I snap her a sharp salute and stack up with the others at the door.

Freight Train nods once, apparently approving my attitude.

I know his species was given plenty of leadership and planning roles ever since they launched their first space ship, but I never get used to the idea that lumbering beasts like that could possibly be tactical geniuses and reliable soldiers.

The two Salarians finish jacking the wires together and the door opens with another rush of air.

I jump in and cover the right side while Grunt takes the left.

Corridor with bulkheads every ten meters or so on either sides and another, tightly sealed one at the end of it. Nothing in sight, except scorch marks on the walls and ballistic munitions impact all over the damned place.

"Clear!" I move forward and drop to a knee just before the first bulkhead.

A Quarian does the same on the left side of the corridor.

We exchange a glance, both expressionless visors looking at each other, trying to read the other's posture.

If I remember the holo-display right, the distress signal came from all the way up that hallway, through the door and to the right…

"Got movement!" a Krogan shouts from behind. No point in me turning around, the bulkhead just sealed back, meaning everyone is in, meaning there's no way I can get a clear shot.

There are orders to lay down weapons, stop advancing and finally, one Krogan orders the thing to die, following through with eight or nine shots from his Claymore shotgun.

This is followed by a powerful below of rage and pain, sounding something like 'WAAAAAG!', and one last shotgun shot.

"Scratch that," the same Krogan announces, "no more movement."

He jokes about it, but I don't think I know anything that takes ten shots from a Krogan shotgun to kill.

Makes me glad I have my Revenant.

"Big green freaks are shoot on sight now, people," Vakarian announces after a few seconds of probably poking the corpse, "now move up and watch the crossfire, we're far too crammed in here."

No kidding; the Yahg has to duck under ceiling lights and the Krogans can't stand side by side, this is not the best close quarter engagement I've ever been a part of…


	4. Chapter 4

**A/N: Will keep author notes short or non-existent from now on. Nothing to say, just read story. Talk like Salarians. Make it faster. Need to clarify some things, trivial:**

**1: Unsigned reviews do not affect me, signed reviews will get answers as soon as possible. Respect people who don't hide, can't be bothered to sign reviews, can't be bothered to do research, opinion useless. Have suggestions relevant to making story interesting, will listen. Think force projection off, will listen if shown references. Burden of proof on you, not me.**

**2: Adam Sinclair referencing to himself as Shock-trooper and past as a sniper, nudge at class system overhaul from mass effect to mass effect 3, does not fit any player classes, halfway between Soldier and Infiltrator (Like Operative, in Mass Effect)**

**3: Fall has great significance in English language, beginning of cold season where many lives are lost or suspended, cause of seasonal depression, also refers to waterfall, landmarks that have been there for centuries, eroding the earth tirelessly and shaping the world little by little, used as short for downfall, destruction, usually self-inflicted or result of carelessness, conclusion always unavoidable, biblical interpretation also possible, Adam and Eve cast out of Eden referred to as Fall of Man. Finally, gravitational physic phenomenon of being drawn to a celestial body's gravitational wheel, falling.**

**Best you could come up with is "Typo, you meant Fail!"?**

**Forgive me if I Fail to take offense.**

**0**

**0**

**09**

"WAAAAAAAAG! *Boom*" The green guy's brain splatters on the floor, courtesy of Charon's shotgun, going off somewhere behind and to my right.

First loading the Cryo-rounds protocol in my gun, I quickly take aim at the four additional foes down the hall and spray bullets all over the tight hallway, effectively freezing them all on the spot to be shattered by a well-placed frag grenade.

Easy, but these things have no armor to speak of and carry massive knives around, so let's not get soft. Savages with knives don't take over warships this size, they must be cheap muscle for the real threat.

Fortunately, my tech armor provides good protection against virtually everything, not like my hardened tissue-paper armor or shiny shields that lets knives and debris through. The tech armor works on the same basis as the omni-blade; a thin layer of hyper-dense carbon held in place by mass effect fields in my suit. When something impacts the armor, the energy is transmitted straight to the emitters, which will explosively overload if the strain is too great, killing anything without kinetic barriers in a ten meters radius.

Anyway, we progress through the door on the right and are faced with a massive, triple locked bulkhead, like the one we faced coming in, except this one had one of its locks blasted, turning it into another wall.

"Warning: This bulkhead will require time to cut through, please cover me."

I always feel strange when Geth use 'I' or 'Me', every mission briefing I ever had said they were gestalt entities, but Shepard helped them achieve sentience, so they are now self-aware gestalt entities and this shit blows my mind; I'll just go back to that corridor and cover the left side, where we came from.

The Revenant's worn grip feels good in my hand. Eight years I've had this gun by my side and it has never left me hanging, I never knew any living being this reliable. From Earth to Tuchanka, that weapon has been my only friend, even as my whole team, or even platoon died around me, the Rev kept firing, kept killing tirelessly and on command, never hesitating, never questioning and never stopping to take a break.

I'm not stupid, I realize my original training as a sniper influences that way of thinking as much as the gun's reliability does; I was supposed to go alone on high-risk missions, counting only on myself and my gear. The attitude stuck and even now, as a squad heavy weapon specialist, I find myself constantly sent on errands that require a lone soldier with high survivability, as a runner, decoy, bait or just to hold a hallway until the others cut through a door. I never really fight alone, I'd be dead otherwise, but I rarely fight _alongside_ others, even when I'm not on special assignment, I try to keep a good distance from the rest of the team, to avoid being caught in an explosion when they step on a mine, being spotted when they fail to lay low or just get hit by the same burst that kills them.

The door closes behind me and I am alone in the bullet-riddled corridor, Rev aimed downrange.

Soon enough, some kind of two meters tall frog-monkey hybrid with a flamethrower comes through the opposite door, seventy meters further. I see movement in the darkness behind it, but can't make out any actual shape before the bulkhead seals back.

Only one and it still didn't see me, my black armor apparently blending well with the scorch marks.

Is that thing chewing on a cigar?

Doesn't matter, two squeezes of the trigger and it is pushed backward against the bulkhead. The thing's scrap metal armor plates still protect it from the freezing effect of the cryo rounds, somehow, so I switch to incendiary and open up again, holding the trigger a little longer this time.

Ten rounds slam in a tight cluster on the thing's chest and melt the steel plates to an orange jelly.

Green guy pushes himself forward and roars in defiance. I squeeze five more shots before having to pause and adjust my aim. I then shoot shot round after round into the thing's face, eating away at it and burning off flesh until the eight bullets, which rips right through the thing's skull.

It collapse halfway down the hallway, gurgling one last war cry before dying.

"Sinner," Vakarian speaks in my headset, "talk to me."

The Rev remains at the ready as I answer, "All clear, one Tango down, Sinner out."

The door at my back opens to let Charon and two Krogan through. No orders were issued that I know of, they just decided to come and rack up some kills.

One of the Krogan holds a Graal Spike thrower and the other a Striker assault rifle. Anything that comes in here better be wearing some tough shit armor; with my Rev laying down suppressive fire, Charon's shotgun filling the air with serrated tungsten spikes, the Graal doing the same with flechettes and the Striker tossing high-explosive rounds downrange.

Charon slaps my shoulder pad and I nod, grateful for his presence despite him being a googly eyed alien.

"How we doing on explosives?" One of the Krogan speaks, staring straight at me. Guess I'm supposed to be the demolition specialist here.

"Six DX charges, a dozen inferno grenades and…" A double check of my assault webbing and pouches confirms it, "That's it."

His massive head turns down the hallway for a second, then back to where I'm kneeling. "We'll cover you, move up and set up the charges along the walls." He thrust his Graal on my chest and draws a very old and worn Mattock.

The shotgun makes me feel somewhat better about going over there, but if you remember what I said earlier, anyone caught in these guys' line of fire better have some serious armor if they don't want to get torn to shred. I'm in their line of fire and as good as my armor is, it's not really the toughest there is…

I magnetize the first charge to the wall on the right and take a dozen steps before kneeling and planting another on the floor, right next to the dead alien. Another dozen steps and I slap a charge on the left wall and so on, rotating between walls, floor and ceiling clockwise until I'm just two meters from the bulkhead and almost standing on the first alien we shot.

It's odd, the thing barely bled at all and its guts, spread all over the floor, are covered with green powdery rot, same color as their skin. It's as if these things were actually the frames for some sort of fungus or something.

An Omni-tool scan reveals it is both animal and vegetal. The animal side is dead, but the plant still gives of biosigns. It's alive.

"Bullshit!" That came out on itself, a little louder than necessary, but we've been shooting like crazy ever since we got here, if anything was to be tipped off on our presence, the gunfire would have drawn it before my outburst did.

Let's head back to the others nonetheless.

You know Murphy's law? Says anything that can go wrong will do so in the worst possible manner. Just as I face my team, the doors spread on either side of the corridor hiss open and massive green fuckers with steel plates and handmade ballistic weapons pour in, immediately coming under fire from the Krogans and Batarian, but still coming nonetheless.

If I shoot from where I am now, I risk friendly fire and if I stay here, I risk being overrun faster than a lone Salarian on Tuchanka, so I backtrack to the bulkhead just as the Asari tells us to fall back and seal the hatch. I step through the door just as they do so on the other end of the hallway.

Triple lock door, need to bust one of the locks to seal the thing. No more explosives, can't shoot it and can't hack it. My omni-blade does the trick, however, and I step back just as something massive shakes the whole room.

This thing won't keep them out for long and I can't detonate the charges without weakening the door in the process, so let's just be someplace else when they get through.

The room is empty, despite what I thought earlier, filled with circular water tanks. No fishes in sight, probably water reserves.

Well, what now? I can't exactly go shooting my way through these walking tanks and my sneaking skills are rusty. First order of business, I suppose, is shutting off my tech armor; glowing orange plates tend to attract attention.

I'm used to being on my own, but this is different, I'm cut off, nowhere to fall back if things get bad and no one to patch me up if I get hit.

Carole used to love these operations, testing yourself against challenges that would stop a whole platoon, thinking outside the box and staying alive.

Carole was torn to shreds by husks.

"Vakarian," I speak in my headset while carefully stepping between the tanks, "Sinner, how copy?"

There are dozens of tanks, spread in four rows. Something green reflects in the water, two tanks ahead and I kneel behind the closest glass pillar.

No answer. A glance at my HUD warns me there is no signal whatsoever. Either they were all killed, the walls are very thick or someone's jamming me.

The Frog-monkey step into my line of sight, dragging its massive feet as it walks in my general direction. Didn't notice me, probably heading for the door, but it will pass me by in just a few steps.

I could shoot it, its face is unarmoured and its armour is scrap anyway, but that would make noise and if Carole taught me one useful tip, it's that when you don't want to get shot at, you should not shoot others. I think she meant it as a joke, but it has merit; if you don't want to be stuck in a firefight with a better armored and armed opponent, don't shoot it and manipulate the variables to fight on your own term.

I modulate my omni-blade into a long, thin spike, as smooth and pointy as I can manage with so little time.

With the new parameters entered, my omni-tool switches off just as the large beast steps past the tank. It must have noticed the glow or spotted something, because it stops and looks down to where I was just a second ago.

I finish sneaking around the tank and leap on the thing's hunched back to dive my new blade deep in the back of its skull.

Strong, resilient and impressive as they are, reflexes are obviously not a part of their skill set, as the target barely has time to realize I'm clinging to its back before having a translucent orange spike poking from its face.

Holding on to its armor's collar, I ride the thing on its way down and stab again, at the base of the neck, to be safe.

Well, let's move before that door opens.


	5. Chapter 5

I enter this new hallway pretending to be walking on eggs. Eggs I don't want to crack, that is, wouldn't normally give a shit about eggs on a mission.

The Rev remains stowed on my back, same as the Graal, too noisy, I use my Eagle with gas-dampeners and my omni-blade as weapons. It'll have to do.

Corpses, gold armored blue faced aliens, litter the floor and two lumbering Greens are poking through for survivors.

Available covers are few and far between; a sharp recess in the left wall, eight steps further, leading to what seems like the bathrooms, ten meters further is a pile of rotting corpse blocking the hallway and just a bit after that is a large pipe, coming out of the right wall and running parallel to the hallway and disappearing in the ceiling just before the bulkhead. I could crawl under it, barely, and it would hide me from sight.

I crouch walk my way to the bathrooms, one step after another, hugging the wall when one of the thing looks my way. It stares at the door past me, stupid but evil eyes just glaring at it like it wants to shoot the bulkhead…

Forget that, it does shoot the bulkhead, prompting the other to punch it in the face and yell.

While they bicker, I cover the rest of the gap and drop to a knee once there.

So… Use that diversion to progress further or check out the bathrooms?

Nothing useful in toilets, but these guys are fighting, angry, alert, they may not be paying attention to their surroundings, that doesn't mean I'll make it to the corpses before the argument stops. When it does, one will turn away and that means face me.

The door is half the size of those I went through before and it leads to an emptied armory. You might think it's better than a toilet, but there aren't any guns in here and I need to take a piss.

Something moves behind a gun rack, dead ahead, and I kneel behind cover, Eagle in hand.

Plenty of racks around to use as concealment, seem like plastic or some thin material of the sort, not good as cover, but it'll keep me out of sight as I maneuver around whoever's in here.

I don't hear any footsteps, but that doesn't mean they're not maneuvering too, I'm not making much noise either.

So whoever's in here either stands very still or is as good a sniper as I am. That's not exactly saying much; I'm real fucking rusty and my armor isn't meant for sneaking.

Not to devalue the Defender Armor; it's fucking badass, relatively lightweight, and the smart conception ensures that there is no loss of flexibility, but it's still a few hundred pounds worth of circuitry, steel and fabric.

Still, even when I was training with Carole, back when the M-92 Mantis was my favourite gun, I wore that suit, not the same one; I took on some muscle since then, but the model has undergone very little changes over the years.

The other, if he didn't move, should be just behind that next rack. I could peek over it and point my gun at them, but if they relocated, I'll just reveal my position.

Shit, I hate this, something in the back of my brain keeps telling me I'll get stabbed in the clavicle any second and sends warning signals to my whole body, painful waves throbbing along my spine.

It's not irrational fear either, I know there's something, but can't see it, until that changes, I'm vulnerable and it isn't.

The Eagle clicks lightly when I bring it up to bear, but there's no target in sight.

If they saw me, they must have realized I saw them too and concluded I would try flanking maneuvers. Thus, I'm just where they want me and should move quickly.

Those two brownish locker things, straight ahead, would make good cover, the space between them wide and deep enough to hide me completely. I must crouch run in the open for just a second, but nothing shoots at me and I squeeze against the wall to conceal myself better.

Now what? I got no idea where they can be and roaming around aimlessly until I bump into them isn't a sound tactic.

The hiss of the door fills the room, followed by the sound of hurried footsteps. Guess that takes care of my problem.

0

0

0

"Creator Tali'Zorah," The Geth unit spoke when the Quarian stepped through the door, "we have reached a consensus." it meant the Geth collective, not the platform itself. About time too, they had been building consensus for a whole week.

"Ah," The admiral sat down at her office and took a sip from her energy drink. It still felt weird to just drink it, no filtering or emergency induction straw involved, "I was starting to think you'd forgotten about me!"

"Geth share their memory, Tali'Zorah, we do not forget." Nor did they have a sense of humor. Some units did, but it was impossible for them to relay it to the consensus, too much data about something apparently made it unfunny.

The Geth waited patiently as Tali brought her workplace online, "So, what concensus did you reach?"

Its single optic wired as the unit focused on the creator's mask, "We will help."

"Good!" Tali brought up the file transfer software and turned back to the platform, "Let me forward you the classified parts of the project…"

It braced itself physically, legs spread at shoulder length, facing the terminal, then nodded.

The Quarian sent over a single file, called Synthesis, that caused the Geth's optic to flare bright blue for a few seconds before returning to their original red.

"Error: Quarian physiology incompatible with hardware. Casualties estimate over seventy percent."

Tali nodded slowly and reclined in her seat, contemplating that new data, which she already suspected. It meant four years of hard work, down the drain, a good idea on the paper, one that would compensate for her people's limited numbers and give them a greater role in the ACR. Wasted now.

"Bosh'tet!" was a really tame reaction, given the circumstances.

The Geth clicked and buzzed for a second, almost seeming ashamed, "Creator Tali'Zorah," It spoke, sheepishly, as if scared of the skinny Quarian, "there is more we must discuss."

Geth didn't fear much, they were impervious to physical injuries -should their platform fail, they could just download themselves to the Geth consensus-, they processed some of the most advanced technology in the galaxy and were, to some extent, omniscient, so if something had this platform nervous, it had to be big.

Her terminal flared with data, binary conversations, schematics, force projections.

Necrontyres, a race of advanced aliens turned advanced machines, had ran across the Geth and both machine races had kept peaceful relations until the Geth refused to reveal any information about their organic allies or the location of the Geth homeworld. Necrons had wiped out a sizable fleet to the last ship without suffering any losses themselves. Before finishing off the synthetic fleet, however, the hostile machines had issued an ultimatum: "Do not oppose us. If we set foot on your homeworld, we will wipe you from existence."

To which the Geth had answered truthfully: "If you set foot on our homeworld, then we will already have been wiped from existence."

Tali looked up at the synthetic being before her. It was willing to lay down its life to protect Rannoch, just like the Quarians were, it was the most loyal ally her people had ever dreamed to have, and their former worst enemy. Strange galaxy.

"I will notify the admiralty board immediately!" She declared, rising from the chair. She brushed past the platform and stopped to add one last thing: "You won't fight alone, as long as a Quarian is left standing, they will not touch Rannoch." The small Quarian had such fire in her that the Geth's victory chances estimation increased by two percent.

"Keela se'lai." It spoke, bowing it's head.

Tali sighed and nodded back, "Keela se'lai."


	6. Chapter 6

The corpses are still stiff as wood when I crash into them. A few bones snap under the weight, but the wet sound isn't enough to get me discovered.

Whoever was in the room before me went past the Greens and through the bulkhead fast, I barely had time to see the thing close before having to dive behind cover.

Damn Greens figured something's up and they're taunting me to come out, from what I can gather.

I could toss two inferno plasma grenades to melt their armor, soften them up with my Revenant and finish them with the Graal, easy in such close combat and the grenades would likely melt their guns, but that would be very noisy and two of them are already a bit much, I don't look forward to fighting a dozen.

Those two are sticking, I'll need to move them if I want to go forward. Going backward is not an option and neither is shooting at them, as my Eagle sure doesn't have the punch to bring two of these things down. Carole used to say there's always a way, if you think about it hard enough. Carole was torn to shreds by husks.

Going back… I still have charges set up. If I blow them up, the two brutes here will rush over to see what's going on, and find me in the process, but if I time it just right, one charge, one round, I could use it to drown the gunshots. The Rev doesn't have enough punch for that, I'll use the Graal and grenades.

Six charges, six shots, let's not waste them.

The infernos whine in both hands as I roll them on the floor. Five second fuses only last three seconds. Graal in the right hand, detonator in the left, which is also holding the Graal's barrel up. The Greens aim their weapons at me. I'm out of cover, easy target.

The first charge, both grenades and the shotgun all go off in one, massive bang.

Both aliens are thrown off balanced and badly scorched by the plasma grenades, only the one on the right has most of his face blasted away.

The Graal shotgun was built to hunt Thresher Maws, as tough as you are, a volley to the face will make you wonder why you're now breathing through your asshole.

Yet the Green still stands, barely shaken by the gruesome injury.

The other one had his eyes cooked by the blast and is flailing around aimlessly, so with the next charge, I shoot at the same target again, right to the face once more, this time ripping the lower jaw clean off.

I pop out the thermal clip and the Green rushes straight at me. The next charge covers the sound of the Graal ravaging his left kneecap.

He plants face first in the pile of corpse and I blast it once in the back. Two charges left and it's getting back up.

He pushes himself to his valid knee and I spring my Omni-blade to bear.

I could stab in in the forehead, but some sadistic part of me prefers to dig the blade in the back of the throat and slice up along the upper jaw.

He dies and I have two charges left for his pal, who's also rushing at me now. Probably heard the wet choking sound his buddy's now making. The thing's face is shit scary, its jaw spreading far too wide, its eye socket empty and leaking dark liquid all over its face.

The first blast severs his right hand clean off, the gun fused to it clattering to the floor, even more useless now. I was aiming for the head. Fucking spray and pray Krogan armament.

I blow the last charge and squeeze the trigger a split second before the Green reaches my position. I hit it straight in the guts. Maybe it suffices, maybe not, can't say for sure, it's still stumbling forward, so I step aside and slice through the thing's thigh like it were made of butter.

Omni-blades are like laser knives mixed with diamond cutters, not much can stand up to it, although it tends to cauterize wounds, meaning superficial cuts won't kill your target.

Not a problem with mine, however, as it trips over and fall on all four, still very much alive.

In one swift motion, I hope on its back and dig my blade in the back of its skull.

Fear was present all along, these aren't kittens, but only now, as the adrenaline rush wears off, does it hit me, starting at the base of my spine and rising painfully all the way to my skull. I feel weak, like my legs are made of wet cardboard, and my whole body is shaking violently.

My kneepads dampen the fall and I hold my face off the floor with both hands.

The shakes spread inside my guts and I hurriedly take off the Cerberus assault helmet, a split second before spreading orange soup and brown bread over the pile of gold armored aliens.

I fought Krogan before with heavy armor and kinetic barriers, much harder to take down, but far less messy.

That, and I was never alone, never in close combat and never hung over. Shit.

The Cerberus helmet beeps from atop the pile of corpse. Coms are back online.

The hiss of air scrubbers reminds me I didn't atmo-check before removing the helmet. Could have been no air in this place and my lungs would have explosively decompressed.

No sense beating myself over it now.

"This is Sinner, anyone copy?" The Graal returns on my back and I draw the Eagle before moving forward.

The bulkhead leads to a set of stairs, short but wide and long, like those in the citadel, meant for evey species to be comfortable climbing them. They're slowly curving to the right, deeper into the ship.

"Sinner! This is Urdnot Grunt, where are you?" The Krogan has that excitement in his voice they get only when under fire.

"Got cut off," Ain't that fucking obvious? "what's the status on the…"

The bulkhead at my back seals with a hiss, but it doesn't quite cover the sound of the one on top of the stairs. Can't see the thing, but I'm fairly sure I hear muffled footsteps coming down.

Grunt seems to think my question was complete, "We have the aliens we're here to get, but the ones that shoot at us are in our way and the other ones are too soft, can't punch through or they'll die, make some noise and get them off our back!"

I think this was an order for me to go loud…

"Negative, sir," I hiss, hugging the wall and climbing the stairs one step at a time, " if I break stealth protocols, my position will be overrun in minutes, can't you find an alternate way out?"

Tense murmurs reach me, coming from somewhere higher up the stairs. Someone else is sneaking around and we're on a collision course.

"No, we can't!" The Krogan seems pissed and, right now, that's the least of my problems, "Just do what you did earlier, blow stuff up, that got their attention for a while!"

"Alright." Some sort of long golden box appears around the corner, the two holes on the tip look a lot like gun barrels.

The gun is long, more so than my pistol anyway, which means I got the element of surprise and the upper hand up close. No idea what my hand is like at a distance and I intend to keep it that way.

Two steps forward and I have a firm grip on the barrel. From there, I know over a hundred lethal takedowns, all depending on the physiology of my opponent. Let's see who I'm up against; two red eyes, over-under, like a security mech's, gold armor, thick armor plates, reminiscent of ancient Samurais, impression that is only increased by the sword he wears on his belt.

Otherwise, articulations, proportions and mass are close to those of a Quarian.

I put my left foot between the soldier's legs, holding his gun in my right hand, and spin on the spot to bring my right foot next to the other one and rip the gun from its owner's grip. Said owner then goes tumbling down the stairs and I pivot again to face the top. Two more of these soldiers are aiming at me. Shooting them would end this quickly, but I don't want to start a diplomatic incidend. Getting shot isn't tempting either, so let's follow the guy now kissing a bulkhead downstairs.

My fall was deliberate, but it doesn't have the grace I intended it to have. Seems I didn't lock the helmet, because when I hit the bulkhead as well, it's bareheaded and it causes me to loose pretty much all reception, just like a TV during a thunderstorm.


	7. Chapter 7

**A/N: Telling me I suck and that I'm wrong won't really help things. As mentioned before, I'm open to critiques and suggestion, so long as you tell me where I made a mistake and show me references that prove me wrong. So far, I doubt anything I wrote broke from established canons and just telling me otherwise without developping further is a waste of time for everyone.**

**Hey, thanks for the reviews, everyone, glad to see some people realize the effort I'm putting in this thing.**

Colors return before shapes and sound, so I just see a mass of gold a few centimeters from my face, then, I see the two dark holes on the tip of it, followed by the boxy body of the rifle, the scope, three fingered hand and, finally, bruised blue face. Male, with a ponytail and Mohawk, odd combination, his jaw is almost as square as the rest of the armor.

"Hey," I greet, biting back on the fear I feel creeping up, "You wouldn't have some demo charges, would you?"

He answers in complete gibberish, but I'm sure there was something about my mother in there.

My fingers drift to the holster on my left thigh. Empty, of course, I was holding the Eagle when I fell, why would it be in there?

I'm fairly sure my kinetic barriers can stand up to that duct-tape load of scrap metal, but knifing my way out of this will be tricky, especially from the ground like that.

I could open the bulkhead my back is resting on, that would give me somewhere to fall back to, but the keyboard is to the right, behind that guy pointing a gun at me, and I doubt his buddies scoping me from higher up the stairs would just sit and watch while I kick his ass into submission.

The Rev and Graal are on my back, out of reach. Let's play along for now.

The Blue screams something at me, as if I'd suddenly speak the same language if he talks louder.

"Yeah, sorry, I'll need subtitles." He doesn't get it and neither do his friends.

So we just stare at each other. He doesn't have a nose, just some kind of slit or wood chopping accident in his face. His gun never leave my face and any attempt to get up is met by cold steel pressed against my forehead, right where the slit would be if I was his race. Guess that bothers him somewhat.

One of them barks something I believe must be close to 'just shoot him' and turns away to go back up the stairs.

Fuck this!

I roll left, fumbling at my shoulder pad in the process, and the two remaining aliens both shoot at the same time, narrowly missing. I roll back to where I was and the Kukri combat knife whistle through the air and hit the alien up the stairs in the helmet hilt first. Not the intended result, but the impact knocks the sucker on his ass, long enough for me to grab and pull on my little friend's rifle, while sweeping his legs with my armored boots.

He drops his gun –again- while crashing to the floor. He doesn't quite make it as I catch him under the right shoulder on my way up and spring my omni-blade so it's a centimeter from his face. I'm kneeling and he's sitting on his ass, weird hostage situation.

The alien giving orders turns back around just as I draw the Graal left handed, his rifle is shorter and has an underslung grenade launcher, it's aimed at me now.

I rest the shotgun on my meatshield's shoulder pad while the second alien recovers from my lack of knife throwing skills, soon also aiming his gun at me.

I still don't get a word they say, but they are very pissed off.

I need explosions, gunshots, something to attract the Greens, this situation is going to take a while to solve and I can't kill these guys… Not diplomacy anymore, I plan to attract the Greens and have them find these three suckers instead of me, then they'll just hold them back for me and I can get my ass out of here.

I kneecap-with a weapon like the Graal, it's closer to amputation- the leader and dig my omni-blade in my hostage's thigh.

The third alien shoots me in the head once and my kinetic barriers flare up, slapping the round aside, although it feels like someone sprayed boiling oil on my right cheek and ear. I squeeze the trigger once more and turn the shooter's right foot to a bloody stump.

Screams of pain fill the room soon enough, bound to attract some attention, but I still open the bulkhead, so they can get a clear shot at the Greens that will soon come down the hall. These guys suck at close combat, let's at least give them a fair chance.

"Good luck, pals." Is all the support I can offer before climbing up the stairs, Graal returning on my back. My Kukri is nowhere to be seen and I hear Greens roaring in excitement, getting closer, so there's no time to look for it. I do find my N7 Eagle, tucked in the leader's belt. "I'll take that back." He tries to stop me, gripping my wrist with all his strength, but I simply punch his helmet until he lets go.

Let's get out of here before that annoying thing called conscience gets the better of me.

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Admiral Hackett and Admiral Shepard both stared at the Drell captain like he were insane. He just might be, for all they knew. The darkly lit 'Interrogation' room was scanned for bugs on a daily basis and its walls prevented any signal from entering or leaving, completely cutting off its occupant from the rest of the world.

"Why him?" Shepard asked, still not sure she understood the basics of the Drell's plot.

"He matched the profile," the alien admitted, "I had just finished reading the Shadow Broker's intel report, it advised we assign highly advanced vessels to trust worthy captains with great leadership abilities and use them as corsairs and spy."

Hackett nodded, he had read the Broker's file and agreed on many points, but that didn't tell him what was so special with Sinclair. "He's a leatherneck, a heavy gunner with more muscle than brains!" The admiral respected the Marines, but this one was not meant to lead a ship. Hell, he was not even meant to complete high-school!

Hannah Shepard cleared her throat and Hackett immediately regretted his poor choice of words. Commander Evelyn Shepard had been a grunt too, same unit as Sinclair, only a few years earlier.

"Your daughter was unique, Hannah," He apologize, "this boy is just a cannon fodder."

Captain Kolis sent both of their omni-tools fragments of Sinner's file, highlighting oddities in the man's career path.

"Adam Laramée-Saint-Claire," the Drell's French accent was something to hear, but maybe the translators were just having issues with it, "grew up in Nice, France, where he was seen in parkour competitions and is said to have won quite a lot of money from winning, earned a few injuries as well," x-rays of broken arms, legs, foot and even a cracked vertebrae showed over the files, "immediately after obtaining his high school degree, he signed up with the French Foreign Legion and had his name changed to Adam Sinclair."

Everything from his service in the FFL was blacked out, but it did not last long as he was transferred to the Alliance Marines three years after, shortly before the Reaper invasion, and was, for all intent and purpose, an accomplished Squad Designated Marksman by then. He then proceeded to distinguish himself during the battle for Earth not only through sniping skills, but also by leading seemingly untrained civilians and militias into battle against Reaper forces and achieving some measure of success, in that their objective was reached, although his followers all died.

There was another instance where he fought his way through Husks and Marauders to get a single shuttle pilot to safety. When asked why he risked his neck like that, Sinclair simply answered he thought her voice sounded sexy over the radio.

"Okay," Shepard nodded, getting the point, "He can make people fight and keep his cool under fire, we see that, but we have many soldiers like him in the Alliance and some with actual rank to go with it, your man is just a Corporal, has been for eight years!" Indeed, such an efficient soldier would have gotten promoted after so long, had there not been something else to hold him back.

Hackett was the one to find out, "He's never attended any Alliance officer school, the FFL must have showed him their own military protocols, but these are different from the AMC or ACR… Even when he was transferred to N7, they skipped his formation and he was trained on the field."

The Drell captain nodded twice, "Bureaucracy is all that stands in his way, if you could simply have him attend officer school and complete his formation, he would be perfect for this assignment."

Perfect might not be the best term, Sinclair still had a nasty history of taking questionable initiatives and doing whatever he deemed necessary to complete his mission and stay alive. Hardly a team player and much less a team leader, but for this, they didn't need paragons of humanity, such as Evelyn Shepard had been, they needed ruthless renegades that they could easily claim were acting on their own and who, indeed, could handle themselves without clear orders.

They needed a new, better Cerberus. One for the whole Citadel, a group of misfits, like Shepard had assembled on her travels, who would operate independently from the Council, unlike Spectres or the Joint Task Force, both of which were very effective forces for their respective tasks, but were also held back by their authority.

The Shadow Broker had been the one to come up with this idea, stating he would give these forces any information he could to help them see the big picture and decide on the best course of action, but the ACR and every races would have to work with him for this to be viable; They would need powerful ships, skilled crews, good leaders, the latest weapon and armor tech and good AIs.

Hackett looked up from the file, one question still nudging him, "Why send him on the derelict anyway? The team was completed and he was not combat ready yet…"

The Drell shrugged, "I had just finished reviewing my men's files and, when I saw him, I remembered a few odd points in his dossier. I wanted to see if he was as good as it seemed."

"Is he?" Shepard was genuinely curious about this young soldier now, not that his story was all that unique, she had seen a lot like his over the years, but he was still interesting.

"Seems that way…" Kolis checked something on his omni-tool, to be certain, then nodded again, "He was separated from the rest of the team shortly after boarding and they managed to raise him on the com barely long enough to give him suicidal instructions, which he followed, allowing the team to retreat back to the shuttle."

If he were dead, this conversation would not have happened, thus everyone in the room knew there was still one ACR soldier crawling around the ship, killing aliens that had made Krogans back down.

"The first company is boarding as we speak," Kolis explained after a few seconds, "they will clear the ship and extract Sinner, once they do, I will request his transfer back to the Alliance."

"And you want us to have him sent to Interplanetary Combatives Training?" Shepard mused, exchanging glances with Hackett. They both seemed to be thinking the same thing, that kid had no chances of making it through ICT, not twelve years into his military career and with nothing but a high-school degree. Still, this was worth a shot.

"Indeed, we still need to build the ships and assemble the crew; every Joint Task Force Commander must provide one of his men as leader before this is done. Ten months and I was, until today, unable to choose." he massaged his eyes for a second before resuming his monologue, "Adam Sinclair is, in my opinion, the best candidate I can provide and I would be grateful if the Alliance could cut the paperwork, in the interest of everyone."

Both Alliance Admirals promised to do their best and shook the Drell's hand before going back to their duties. In this case, represent humanity in the upcoming discussion with the bridge crew of the derelict.


	8. Chapter 8

Fucking Asari/Hanar/Smurf hybrids, of all the weird things Hackett had negotiated with, these Tau were the most annoying, especially the dried up one, the Ethereal, with her weird ass name, constant Jedi-like attitude, 'These are not the droids you are looking for...', and that weird thing the Asari diplomat did with her eyes whenever the other tried to manipulate Hackett.

Both blue aliens hated each other, no question here, almost like two predators competing for dominance.

Shepard had warned him not to ask question about the Asari until the meeting was over, said it was the kind of thing Thessia's government would kill to keep quiet.

Hackett knew better than to piss off the Asari, so he kept his mouth shut while the conversation continued between the Diplomats of the Tau Empire and Associated Citadel Races, nothing he had any weight in, he was just there to give this meeting more weight, as were some of Commander Shepard's old crew, like Garrus Vakarian, Kaidan Alenko and Urdnot Grunt, no real point in their being here beyond making this all look good in history books.

In the back of the room, he spotted Garrus and Grunt talking to a Tau auxiliary, apparently curious as to why he had five fingers when the others had only three. Those two always acted like child when put together. Granted, one of them was about ten years old, but still, he led Aralakh Company, the most elite Krogan force ever created!

"Why don't you want to tell us? We're all friends here!" Garrus tried, trying to pull the old Turian charms on that one. Damn shame Turians were spiky monsters more skilled at killing stuff and calibrating gun than anything else, or it might have worked.

The female voice that came out of the triangular helmet surprised Hackett somewhat, with all the armor plates, he hadn't realized the auxiliary was female, "Taking off your helmet outside designated safe zone is prohibited, unless it is for field maintenance, re-hydration or the system is…"

Apparently, this had gone to a 'what do you look like underneath that helmet thing' when Hackett wasn't listening. He himself was curious, he heard there could have been humans on board the ship, but wanted to see it with his own eyes.

Grunt shook his massive head and tried something else, "If I wanted to crush your skull, that plastic thing wouldn't stop me." He grinned ferociously.

She hefted her pulse carbine. "No, but _this_ plastic thing would."

Garrus chuckled at that. Talking back to a Krogan like that meant you either had a death wish, or had seen much worst. Given what they'd seen on that derelict, that woman had seen much worst.

"Don't mind Grunt, he's had a rough childhood." Garrus explained, causing a sneer from the Krogan.

The auxiliary shook her head slowly. She wanted to get out of this room, take off the cumbersome armour plates and have the longest hot shower possible on this tub, but leaving the Ethereal was out of the question, especially with his usual escort torn to shreds somewhere on the abandoned vessel.

The xenos were annoying and childish, but it was no cause for her to shoot them, so she waited and kept her finger off the trigger.

After some thinking, Grunt came back for another attempt "What are you afraid of? You can't possibly be uglier than that!" He emphasized by jerking his thumb toward Vakarian's rocket injury.

That made her scoff, but nothing more. The Tau were a very serious race, Dark Eldar slavers were nothing to laugh about and the Imperium had been even worst, so she had very little defence against humour. As irritated as she was, part of her anger came from the hardship she endured trying to hold back almost delirious-grade laugher.

That was the real reason for her not to remove the helmet; at least nobody could see her grin like an idiot.

Oddly enough, it was Shepard that got the auxiliary to take off her head gear by pointing out she and her men were not hiding their faces as a gesture of trust and it would be simple courtesy if the Tau warriors did the same.

There were two humans in the group of eight soldiers, a bald man with enough facial scars to make Garrus look like a whelp –Garrus had been hit in the face by a rocket- and the woman, sporting short silver hairs and a tear drop tattoo on her right cheek. Hardened soldiers, both of them, and the blues had nothing to envy them, really.

Neither Grunt nor Garrus were surprised at the fact they were humans, both had seen the mission briefings, but the Volus, Hanar, Geth, Quarian and Elcor representatives all paused to look at the two humans.

"Puzzled: Why are there humans within the Tau Empire? Does the Alliance have something to tell us?" The diplomat, Borok, had led the Elcor heavy infantry in their effort to help retake Earth and always showed much respect for the Humans. Had it been anyone else asking, Langley, the Alliance representative, would have taken this as an accusation.

Instead, he simply smiled and shrugged, "We're as surprised as you, old friend, and we hope this will be explained soon enough."

The Turian and Volus ambassadors exchanged a glance and decided not to push it, weirder things had happened and this was not worth making a fuss over, not until everything was sorted out.

Of course, once everything was sorted out, they would demand some answers from the Alliance. This could be no mere coincidence.

The meeting was not exactly peace talks or interrogation as much as it was a mean for both factions to find out about the other before the real negotiations began, both side tried to get the other to reveal important details while withholding critical information. It was war with words, basically, one the Ethereal was losing, thanks to the large number of skilled orators on the other side, the fact they were not physically present in the room and the presence of the Asari, who seemed to always find the words that would make him say a little more.

This enraged the tau leader to no end, but there was little he could do about it. He was being beaten at his own game and could not point out the dishonesty of the ACR's negotiation techniques without revealing one of his caste's most jealously guarded secrets.

Unbeknownst to him, the Asari faced a similar dilemma.

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Meanwhile, on the same deck, the technical laboratories were buzzing with activity as science teams, quartermasters and civilian armorers all checked out the specifics of Tau weaponry.

It was primitive in a lot of way, using magnetic acceleration instead of mass effect fields, firing pre-shaped pellets instead of shaving them of a block of raw materials, using air to cool the weapons and installing a rotating recoil dampening system in the barrel. Impressive technology on the paper, but not to the ACR, given that the mass accelerators fired ammunition forward at 3 900 000 meters per second, 1.3% the speed of light, while Tau pulse rifles fired projectiles at 800 meters per second, a little under Mach 3.

It would have been seen as underpowered, were in not for one piece of their technology worth notice; the plasma containment fields. Nothing fancy, really, they simply used the acceleration coils to magnetize the pellet and surround it by plasma, increasing their firepower to the point of being comparable to an M-98k Black Widow sniper rifle.

Like most major breakthrough in the history of science, this one did not come with an 'Eureka!', but with an "Hey, Milo! Come check this out!"

Before the meeting, happening barely twelve meters down the hall, was even concluded, the first plasma ammunition prototype was completed and loaded in an M-3 Shuriken pistol.

To magnetize the pellet correctly, weaker materials –tungsten mixed with iron, in this case- was needed, otherwise the plasma would dissipate before hitting anything, but everyone agreed the added thermal energy would compensate for the squishier materials.

Plasma reserves were produced from omni-gel, like any other ammunition mod, and the magnetic field came from a boxy addition on the tip of the barrel. No magnetic rails, just a strong field the ammunition would go through, before leaving the barrel and attracting the plasma created a nano-second prior.

This would have taken years of calibrations, had the Geth not already been experimenting on a similar concept.

Testing was done in the armory with fire extinguishers, vacuum suits and champagne ready, just in case.

A security mech, clutching the modified weapon, walked up to the shooting range and turned its optics at the organics cowering behind a blast shield.

Yellow stripes had been painted on the robot and the name Buster was hastily scribbled on its chest, making it look like a collision test dummy.

In this case, explosion test dummy might have been more accurate, as there was a slight chance the plasma, in the short time before being dragged away by the pellet, would cause the pistol's power cell to explosively overheat.

Buster turned its head back to the target, down the range, and spoke up in a cold if somewhat hesitant voice, "Test fire number one, Plasma ammunition, fire in the hole."

It took aim and squeezed the trigger once. No explosion, no hull breach, but the plastic shape down the lane received a smoking hole in the throat and although the kinetic fields protecting the hull stopped the round from punching through, the plasma still leaked past the field and caused ten centimeters of the immaculate white paint job to melt and cook into tiny brown spikes.

Most analysis predicted a four hundred percent increase in lethality and little drawbacks beyond the need for an omni-gel supply and the added weight. Of course, this was merely a prototype, slapped together with whatever they could find laying around and barely more effective than incendiary rounds, but with sufficient research, it would be an excellent way to bring their weapons on par with the new threats they faced.

The champagne was opened, even though Quarians and Turians preferred to share their own bottle of sterilized wine, and everyone granted themselves a few minutes of auto satisfaction before going through all the mandatory paperwork and peer review. Months if not years would be necessary for the plasma mods to be approved and mass produced, but this was the first step.

In the middle of all this, the only reward the brave Buster received was a pat on the back and permission to go back to its charging station.

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From: Operative Archer

To: Cpt. Kolis

Object: Mission accomplished.

Two days after Search and Rescue operation began, Operative Sinner was recovered alive and shows sign of limited PTSD, although nothing that will affect his long term combat effectiveness.

The man was severely injured, however, and notably had plasma burns on his right cheek and ear, the cartilages of his ear melted off and his eye were also damaged by the heat, although when asked about it, he denied losing any visual acuity, the damage indeed seems purely aesthetic, as his cornea and iris are undamaged. His armor was extremely damaged, he had lost his helmet, right shoulder guard and his chest plate was caved in, but kinetic shields and tech armor were still functional. His M-76, Graal hunting shotgun and N7 Eagle were all damaged beyond repair, barrels melted or frame cracked from being used as melee weapons.

He was in a delirious state when we found him, dehydrated, sleep-deprived and in severe hypoglycemia, he will likely not remember much of this operation. Not that he should have in the first place.

With all due respect, Captain, I must inform you a complain will be logged to high command for this reckless use of my men without my consent or knowledge. Sinner is an important part of my team and a very loyal soldier, I am shocked and angered that you would send him on a mission he not only has no proper briefing about, but also does not have security clearance to witness.

I authorized the transfer of every operative you asked because they accepted the conditions and signed the discharge, Sinner was given no such discharge, meaning his death would have been considered accidental and his family would not have received their indemnity. I ask that Sinner be properly compensated for the heavy risks and injuries he endured, in light of the fact his presence on the ship was not registered as ACR operation, making him a private contractor.

P.S. Don't ever fuck with my men again, Kolis, I value their lives far more than I value yours.


	9. Chapter 9

The Tau Crisis Battlesuit stomped on the Blood pack Krogan's shoulder hump and lined up its rail gun to the merc's skull.

"Who 'Sucks at close combat' now?" Fire commander StoneHeart taunted before blasting the beast's brains out. A worthy opponent, but, in the end, StoneHeart had outmaneuvered it and dealt a crippling blow.

Crippling was barely a nuisance to these creatures, but it had kept it down long enough for the Shas'O to finish it off.

Around him, his Shas'ui cadre were mopping up the smaller ones and locking down the perimeter.

StoneHeart had not been prepared for this meeting, finding so many aliens and trying to establish dialogue with them was a major breakaway from his usual trips; he and his troops had been there a few times in the past to beat up feral Orkz and keep their skills sharp. They used a Webway gate to reach the barren world from their garrison, on the edge of the empire's territory. Their own personal playground.

One of his newest recruits, now spread across the whole rocky field, had established dialogue first after days of setting up translation softwares. StoneHeart had seen no harm in letting the kid talk to the strange warriors, socialize a bit until the commander could figure the best course of actions.

The stupid little bastard had actually tried to recruit them into the Greater Good and, when they 'politely' declined, had implied they would all die if they refused.

Not the smartest move and the kid paid for it with his blood, leaving his Shas'o to clean up the mess.

Shas'ui Windsteps brought his battlesuit alongside his commander's and shook the thing's mechanical head side to side. "Those things tore through a Crisis suit like it was a paper bag…" the officer breathed, incredulous, "Have you ever seen one of these?"

StoneHeart certainly did not remember fighting against them, but maybe this was simply a fortuitous meeting with as of yet never encountered inhabitants of the planet, or maybe something bigger was happening.

"Okay, everyone, let's head back to base and see what our illustrious leaders think about this." He spun his suit around and began the walk back to the gateway. "And please try not to anger giant space turtles until we get there, okay?"

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"We rebuilt the cartilages of your ear," the doc explains as I survey my new scar in a mirror, "but the damages to your sclera are not something I've had to treat every day…"

You didn't hear meaningless medical shit until you've heard it from a Krogan. The burn isn't so bad, looks like I have a bacon slice welded to the side of the face and my ear is good as new. He could rebuild the tissues of my cheek too, but full reconstruction costs more than skin graft and the 139 isn't exactly the best funded organisation in the galaxy.

The mirror comes down and I shrug despite myself. Doesn't matter, really, scars like this are worth more than medals to the 139, I intend to keep it.

"By the way…" When a Krogan takes a solemn tone, you know some bad shit is coming, "That rifle of yours, it's not gonna kill anything anymore…" He grabs something off a bed to my right and hand it to me.

The Revenant's heat sinks melted right through the frame and are nowhere to be seen, the barrel is curving downward slightly and there's a huge crack starting at the stock and running all the way to the grip. I can stick my fingers in that crack and see the ammo shaving mechanism.

That gun saved my life more times than any team mate ever did, it was at my side my whole career, fuck, it shaped my whole career! Most importantly, it was Carole's.

Carole was torn to shreds by Husks.

But she was my mentor, my friend and the first woman I ever loved. She died so I could live, gave me the gun and told me to go hold a bunker while she holed up in ruins and sniped whatever came my way. Had she kept the Rev, she wouldn't have been overrun. Had she not shot that Scion, the one sneaking up on me, she would be alive and I'd be dead. She knew that, no way those Husks wouldn't hear the shot, no way she could relocate fast enough, no way I could get there fast enough. Carole died because I was weak.

Carole was torn to shreds by Husks because I couldn't shoot the damned Revenant straight, not enough muscle.

I killed them, got back to base and… I don't know, I'm not sure whether I decided to become stronger, somehow thinking that I would get another chance to save her, or just wanted to forget her and focus on some stupid ass goal.

I need to wear bigger armor because I have a bigger gun. What a joke! How did I ever believe that shit?

Truth is, I didn't want to snipe anymore, I didn't want to think, I just wanted to kill and the Rev let me do just that; stand in the open and kill. I was blaming the gun for choices I made.

Because of that gun, Carole was torn to shreds by Husks and I never followed the path she wanted me to, go to the Interplanetary Combatives Training, become one of the best N7 operative ever and, as insane as it still sounds now, be the second human Spectre. Carole had high hopes for the scrawny French kid, more than anyone's ever had.

Carole was torn to shreds by Husks because of these hopes.

I spat on that, left myself be dragged by the flow. I'm good, made it in the 139, the best fighters in the galaxy, but I'm still just a cannon fodder, no future, no real worth, something to throw away when the mission demands it. Everything Carole hated about the military is embodied in me today.

That gun represents that. Good riddance.

The doc laughs when I toss the rifle to the floor and push myself off the bed.

"Hey, settle down," he growls, holding my shoulders, "Last time I let you through that door, you came back missing parts, and I was blamed," he turned to the scan results on a screen over my head, "you're staying here until I'm convinced you can take on a Thresher with your fists."

I flex my bicep and pound my chest, "I can do that!"

In response, he roughly pokes me in the forehead and I fall back on the pillow.

"Okay, point taken," I sit up, but don't try to get off anymore, "can you send a message to Admiral Shepard for me? I hear she's on this ship."

The Krogan growls, "Hear? From whom?"

I nod to the glass wall, behind him. We can see most of the dining area from where we are and Admiral Hanna Shepard is sitting by herself at one of the tables, eating some shitty rations with equally shitty coffee.

"Wait here."

Razor steps through the door and takes about one more step into the next room before roaring, "Hey, human! Come over here!"

Different chain of command. That's not the best way for me to ask Admiral Shepard for a favour, though.

She raises an eyebrow and leaves her lunch to come see what the Krogan wants.

He steps aside and point at me, "My patient was shot in the head once too many time, he's had some life changing revelation that requires you be there."

Pretty much sums it up.

Shepard smiles at that and walks up to my bedside, puzzled.

"Ma'am, I'd like to be transferred back to the Alliance." Better put it plainly, I'm a little doped up and too much medigel tends to make one emotional, bad combination when talking to a commanding officer.

The shock in her face is pretty unexpected. I'm not the first soldier to request that and it's usually no problem. So why does she looks like a cat caught eating the family canary?

"Why?" Stupid question, I just got shot up, beaten up and burned up. What other reason does a man need to leave his job?

Once again, I lay it out plain, "I want to attend ICT, earn my N7 title and re-learn all that covert op stuff my old trainer tried to beat into me." Plus, that's the skills I needed the most on that ship, not my muscles, not the firepower, not even the armor, just stealth skills and shooting abilities. I'm not fighting Husks anymore, this shit will get me killed against Greens.

"Granted." She announces, far too quickly to my taste, "I'll arrange your transfer immediately." She salutes me, "Welcome back to the Alliance, Corporal Sinclair." I salute back and she leaves the room. Walking so fast she might as well be running.

Razor and I both stare at her back, then at the closed bulkhead, for a whole minute.

"What the hell just happened?" Razor finally asks, scratching his head plate.

"I'm not rightly sure…"

He turns to look at me, "Sinclair, huh?"

"Shut up."


	10. Chapter 10

Blood, blood everywhere. It's a forest, a tundra, but filled with blood. No moon, only a giant bloody eye in the sky. Blood and bones creaking under my feet. I did that. Damn bastards stood in my way, so I destroyed them, like I destroyed the Orkz, like I sacrificed the Tau, like I sacrificed Carole. They were weak, died because they feared death, theirs or their loved ones, I am strong, I draw blood like you open a tap to draw water.

Blood for the blood god.

I am a skilled killer, but not the blood god. He draws blood like you blink, a word of him and worlds bleed to death.

I glance up to His eye in the sea of blood, held over my head.

I can be powerful, if I draw blood in his name. No need to draw more than I usually do, just a few words every time.

Not what Carole would have wanted.

Carole was torn to shreds by Husks. I watched her severed limbs bleed and I enjoyed it.

A strong wind blows some of the blood away, a swirl of blue in the sea of red. Trees bend and crack, some tip over and fall in an explosion of dried bones.

_Don't you dare! She died for us! Died so you could do what has to be done!_

She was weak! She was killed because she thought I was a hero, she was wrong, I can't be something I'm not because some dead bitch wanted me to be.

_No! She died so you could set things right! She knew you better than anyone ever did, she thought you could do some good, don't prove her wrong!_

"I'm sorry," A female voice pierces the veil of blood, "are you operative Sinner?"

What?

I'm in the med bay, curled on an uncomfortable bed and staring at the fridge with the blood reserves visible through the glass doors.

Damn weird ass dream… Rolling on my back, I spot a silver haired woman clad in more armor than I Krogan warlord, sitting on the bed opposite to mine.

"Uh, yes?"

She nods slowly and I drag myself up. This is strange, feels like those vids about predators cornering their prey. Not sure exactly why.

"I am Eliana, auxiliary of the Tau Empire." Tau… Blue aliens. Don't know how I know, but I do. "I hear we have you to thank for drawing away the Orkz…" Too polite, something's off, we're both grunts who survived the same battlefield, she should see me as an old friend, not some guy she heard about a while ago.

"I did what I had to do, don't make it something it's not."

I don't mean to be rude, but this bitch is creeping me out.

Eliana sighs, seeming almost reluctant, "Many terrible things have been done using that excuse." Before I can reply, she removes something from her belt. My helmet. "This belongs to you, I believe…"

That girl's a hardened warrior; she doesn't care about lost and found objects.

"Won't need it anymore," I explain and she puts it behind herself on the bed, "I'm going back to the Alliance, equipment is standard issue there."

There are signs when someone is about to attack, body language, posture, pupil dilatation, so on.

All this stuff in Eliana gives me a split second warning before she whips out my Kukri from the back of her belt and charge me with it.

Split second I use to snatch the twenty centimeters wide square mirror off the side table and throw it at her unarmoured face.

Eliana ducks and I roll of the bed, wearing only combat trousers while she has full combat armour.

Hou-fucking-Rah.

The auxiliary charges again, slashing sideways over the bed's corner. I rear my head and kick the mattress in her way, the frame is bolted down, so that's the best I can do.

She tries to step over it, but her left boot gets caught underneath and she loses her balance for a second. Long enough for me to climb over the bed to the left.

"That's what you always do, isn't it? Run away and let others fight your battles for you!" I wouldn't say always, just whenever I have a chance. Like now, there are cameras in the med bay, security is most likely on the way.

Just need to not get killed until they get here.

"You're insane, bitch," I hiss in response, stepping into the middle of the room, eight steps from where she is now, "right, but insane." I then add, taking a by the book defensive position.

And here she comes again, hacking from over the right shoulder this time.

I've been in this bed for almost a day now, I'm not hung over anymore and I sure as fuck don't feel weak. This bitch thinks she can take an N7 operator? Let her try.

I sidestep the slash, duck under the backlash and spring up with my fist raised, landing a solid uppercut on her chin and knocking her two steps back.

Ever since I got my ass handed to me by that Asari commando, three years back, that whole 'don't hit girls' shit my parents taught me has gone right out the airlock.

She recovers quickly and actually smiles, "So you can fight! Good to see you are just a heartless bastard, I would have felt bad about killing a weak heartless bastard."

She really thinks she can kill me? I just knocked the shit out of her and she didn't come anywhere close to touching me.

"You have serious issues, lady… What the fuck did I ever do to you?"

She leaps forward again, thrusting the knife straight to my chest. I sidestep again and catch her wrist. Too much armor to perform a backward arm lock, so I raise her arm, slip under it and ram my shoulder into that bitch's armored elbow.

The knife falls from her hand, but she kicks me in the knees before I can catch it. The impact causes the muscles and tendons of my legs to 'unlock', forcing me to my knees long enough for Eliana to free her arm and recover the blade.

We're side by side now, me on my knees, her on the left, resting on a knee, knife in the right hand.

We exchange a glance and she lashes out again, forcing me to lean back pretty dramatically.

She's fast and in a much better positing, no way I can get up before she does, so I rest my hands on the floor and perform a move closer to breakdancing than fighting, spinning my legs around and sweeping hers right off the ground.

Her head hits the floor roughly, leaving a thumb sized blood stain.

I kick her in the ribs twice as she tries to get back up and finally land a good hit that causes her to throw up white mucus.

"You killed the only person in the world I ever cared about." She cough, her voice hoarse and filled with hate.

Happens to me often enough, everyone I kill was important to someone else and they all feel like their family or friend didn't deserve it. Well, fuck, no one deserves to die, some just don't deserve to live. If I meet a guy on the battlefield and we try to kill each other, the one with more skills, determination and smarts will live and the other will die. If there was a way for both to live, it would be fucking great, but only one of us can survive this meeting and it's gonna be the one that's willing to work the hardest for it.

I tell her just that.

"These are just words you use to justify mindless killing, you're a murderer!"

Heh, never said I wasn't.

I get on my feet and she tries to push herself off the floor as well. A Krogan and Turian from the 139 enter the infirmary at that moment, weapons aimed at her.

"Stay down, Eliana," I warn her, signaling the guys to lower their weapons, "I'll kill you otherwise, don't be stupid." I don't care if she lives or die, really, she's a skilled fighter, managed to stand up to me in spite of my augmentations, but she's a dumbass, thinks she has the moral high ground, as if such a thing even existed, came at me with my own knife in a ship full of heavily armed bastards ready to space her if she so much as sneezes in the wrong direction. This kind of stupid deserves death, but this level of skills deserve respect, so I'll give her a fair shot if she really wants me dead that much.

Maybe she'll deserve to live more than me, who knows? All it takes is a single mistake.

"Better men than you have said that," She spits, rising to a knee before pushing herself back up, "men and things so far beyond man that you can't even conceive."

Of course, crazy bitch gives me one last try, holding the curved blade in an overhead ice pick grip. I block, both our wrists impacting with a dull thud. The omni-blade whines to life and the smell of burnt meat fills the room. We stare at each other for a few seconds. Her black eyes have seen shit that makes me look like a teddy bear, but of all that twisted shit, it's the teddy bear that finished her off. Funny. She even giggles after I remove the blade from her stomach.

Non-fatal injury. Would have been on the field, but I just stabbed her in the guts, didn't hit anything vital and she's in the infirmary. Bitch will get another try in a week or so. Maybe she'll get lucky that time.

The Krogan and Turian seem puzzled, one of them, not sure which, given the full face helmets, asks me what that was about.

What do you answer to that? Is there any proper response to shit like this? That's a fucking diplomatic incident, pure and simple, and I'm in the middle of it, I'll spend the next eight months grounded and answering questions from council representative. No fucking way, I got admiral Shepard to authorize my transfer, I might not be so lucky next time. That bitch won't ruin my chance of doing what I was meant to.

"Translators malfunctioned." What? Lamest excuse ever! "I was confused and misunderstood her intentions, things escalated and she just kept coming, not sure what she heard me say, but it made her mad…" two Salarian medics squeeze past the security guys to check on the wounded, "hardware's fault, just ask her when she wakes up."

By then, I'll be reinstated as Alliance Special Forces and my file classified, out of the council's reach.


	11. Chapter 11

**January 3****rd**

**2143**

The ICT Superintendent, Colonel Lloyd, was not especially tall or muscular, he had a bald spot on the back of his head and his salt and pepper mustache was slightly neglected, but everything about the man, from the worn uniform crumbling under medals to the mirror aviator sunglasses spoke of a career warrior ready to input his knowledge to his subordinates. The kind of man who didn't speak often and who's hoarse voice, tired of screaming, demanded that you shut up and make sure you caught every word he said.

"Shepard," the old man nodded at the hologram, who nodded back, "you look well," he complimented before frowning a bit, "I didn't train you to be 'well', kid, don't think being Admiral will keep you safe from an ass kicking if you get soft."

Shepard scoffed and poked at her belly, "Hard as rock, Llloyd, everyone gains ten pounds on holograms." The Superintendent nodded, dubious, and she shrugged. Maybe she did get a little soft, but the was so much paperwork and so little time, workouts were often forsaken in favor of some actual leisure time.

"But you didn't requisition some fancy Quantum mobile phone just to chat. What's up?"

Straight to the point, Quantum communications weren't that expensive, not more than TIghtbeam coms anyway, but the Superintendent's time was a scarce resource Shepard had to use well.

"I have a recruit coming; I need him N7 in ten months."

The Colonel didn't blink, as if he'd been expecting it, "How good?" That was really the only information the elderly man needed, so he could think up the right training program. He wouldn't just train a single kid, if he did that ten months thing, a whole training company would do it too, and it would be four months shorter than what they'd signed up for, you couldn't ride recruits harder than ICT already did, but you could train them smarter, spend a bit more money to give them better teaching materials, so on. If Hannah Shepard told him this kid was worth it, Lloyd was willing to pay the fees himself.

"Very;" Hannah announced, checking something to her right, "Field promoted to N7 twenty, fought the Reapers on Earth all the way until…" Whatever came after was lost as Shepard cleared her throat and just continued on, "The kid received his share of medals, fought in twelve Alliance ops, a little less ACR deployments. He's no rookie, just needs a refresher and the sheet of paper that comes with it."

Lloyd offered Shep a sharp salute accompanied by a sly grin, "I'll beat him back into shape, don't you worry."

**Febuary 10**

**2144**

**Vila Militar**

**Rio De Janerio**

**Earth**

The concrete landing pad is slowly being overtaken by weeds and cracked all over. It's hot, even through the sole of my combat boots, the sun hits very hard here and the only ones that don't seem to mind are the instructors. I'm at the back of the formation, can't see much, but I hear it all.

"Welcome to the villa you Muppets!" Muppets? Anyone at ICT is anything but a 'Muppet', we're humanity's finest! "I'm Staff Sergeant Reynold, when I'm not there you can call me whatever you want, when I am, you'll call me sir and I want my name to be the first and last thing I hear when you address me, am I understood?"

There's a hundred of us on the landing pad and we all shout "Sir, yes, Sir!" In unison.

"Glad to see you ain't got shit in your ears, now on the ground and give me a hundred! I want ten quitters before the end of the day and this day isn't over until I say so!"

Ten? Fuck, we're a collection of the hardest bastards in the Alliance, he's not getting ten of us to quit by just making us pump push ups.

From the whining I hear, not all of us are all that bad though.

I get on all four and start pumping push ups. I do three hundreds every morning, so, yeah, not a problem here.

I just follow the beat, going along with the guys by my sides to make sure I don't stop when everyone's halfway through, it would look like I'm just cheating. I am, somewhat, I have synthetic muscles weaved in my natural ones.

Reynold is used to this, however, and spots the thirteen of us recruits with augmentations right away.

"You guys with fake shit in their arms, you know who you are! Give me four hundreds and I want them before your pals are done!"

I hate this man.

Others are almost halfway through, no fucking way I can do this without busting something in my arms…

Well, no use shitting a brick over it, let's try and see what happens.

You ever pumped five push ups per second? Me neither and I don't think I ever will, but I sure am trying now.

Two hundred. Twenty left to the guy on my right, eighteen on the left.

"Fuckfuckfuckfuck!"

My thought exactly. Two hundred and twenty. Eight remain on the left, twelve on the right.

Faster! Up, down, up, down, up, down. My arms are on fire god damnit! Can the synthetic weaves overheat? They sure feel like they are right now.

Three hundred! Five left on the right, three on the left. No fucking way I can make it!

"Dude, this guy ain't human!" someone laughs, far to the right.

Three hundred and I can't feel my arms!

There's tension in the right bicep, like an elastic ready to snap. It hurts like hell, but I'm N7… Wrong, I'm N1. Yay me.

Four hundred and twenty. The two flanking me are done, but they're actually pretty ripped; the rest of the company is still groaning and sweating on all four.

I lean back and let sweat drench my clothes. Training clothes have not changed much from my time in the Marines; camo pants, black t-shirts, plain and with all the comfort of sand paper.

Guh. This is going to be a long day.

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**Three Hours later.**

"Come on, maggots! Lift those feet!" No shit, not like I had a choice; we're running in a stream, surrounded by thick foliage with water halfway between our knees and ankles. If I don't lift my feet, I need to work twice as had for each step. The Sarge's been riding us hard, but he's doing every exercises he has us do, so I can't fucking complain, I'm twenty years younger than he is, but then, I think the guy's actually a Geth… Or an android, or a cyborg. I don't know for sure, but there's no way in hell a normal man can do all this shit while singing army songs and not break a damned sweat.

I'm in the middle of the formation. Synthetic weaves didn't increase my cardio and I'm wheezing like a seal, but I'm not quitting yet. Two guys quit already. Well, one guy and a girl, guy broke his nose. Well, girl broke guy's nose. Whatever he said made her mad, both were thrown out.

The girl in front of me spots something in the water and hop over it. I do the same, but the slippery rocks in the stream and my fat ass don't mesh well and I end up sitting in the water, drenched head to toe. Toes were already wet, whatever.

It hurts like a bitch, think I broke my ass. Can you break your ass? Coccyx, pelvis, I don't know. Kids pass me by, not looking down or even stopping to check on me. I don't hold it against them, I wouldn't stop if it were.

Someone grabs me by the back of my shirt and drags my ass up.

"You ain't done yet, pal." the guys laughs, patting me in the back before running of with the others. Didn't see his face, but he's right, I'm not done yet. Let's run.

The kids back here are all about to snap, too tired to lift their legs above the water and tiring themselves even further by dragging their feet.

About a dozen of them, barely keeping up with the group and keeping away from the instructors with sticks jogging behind the company. If you fall behind, those three mean sons of bitches ask you if you're quitting. If you say yes, they give you some water, a pat on the back and point you to the Souvenir shop where you can get a T-shirt that says "I got beaten to a pulp at ICT. At least I tried."

If you say no, they whack your legs with telescopic batons until to run faster.

No need to whack me, I pick up the pace, lift my drenched boots high above the stream and get my ass back in the middle.

Can't feel my lungs anymore, just two pumping burns in my chest, and we still didn't get anything to drink, meaning the throat isn't doing all that good either.

My whole body screams for me to drink from the stream, just one gulp, like everyone else around me does, but this is Rio, not Montreal, I'll catch a nasty tourista and most likely some parasites if I drink this stuff, not to mention the hundred or so dirty pair of feet dipping in it right now.

If I'm gonna have tea, I'd rather it be warn and not old socks-flavored.


	12. Chapter 12

**Thirty-two hours later.**

**February 11**

**Vila Militar **

There's thick forest around the villa, rainforest, to be precise, I wasn't sure how thick when running in the stream, but now that we're hauling backpacks full of brick through the foliage, I can tell it's about pretty fucking thick, with ferns the size of my chest and branches -Or roots, who knows?- the size of my wrist blocking my path.

We're supposed to keep a two meters spread, so that every recruit makes its own path and to make sure no one gets lost. And we don't get a machete. I effectively had to climb a fucking three earlir

The guy by my side is about to quit. So am I. The muscle weaves mean I usually don't have to provide much efforts to move around or lift things, although I do work out constantly, that only means I'm completely unused to this kind of physical strain.

Synthetic weaves get metabolized after a few weeks of not taking anti-reject pills and completely disappear after a month. I'll quit the meds after today.

"Come on! One more quitter! Do yourself and everyone a favor!" The Sarge is pretty far ahead. He doesn't seem out of breath, yet carries a pack of his own. What the hell is this man? I'm a veteran soldier augmented to the limit and I'm fucking dying here!

Should I quit? This is stupid, I'm almost thirty and still a Corporal, that's not going to change because I'm crawling around in the mud! I wasn't promoted to N7 because I deserved it, but because they needed someone for some specific mission back in the days and never got around to demoting me…

The guy to my right crashes face first is what seems like a huge pile of cow crap and pushes himself off the floor immediately, spinning on the spot to go talk with the instructors out back. "That's it," he calls, storming past them, "I'm done, DONE, I'm not being paid enough for this shit!"

Guess we're doing this, huh?

The sarge then announces we can all head back to the villa for cold drinks, how chow, hot or cold shower, to our liking, and three days R&R before beginning the training.

This isn't boot camp. That fact only just made its way in my mind, this is a military academy, sure we'll have quitters, but the point of this is not to make us into soldiers and weed out those who can't take it, the Alliance Military already weeded them out, this place is meant to teach.

And I'm here to learn.

Come to think of it, maybe I was made N7 by necessity, but the Joint Task Force 139 requested me by name, handpicked me from the Marines to be part of the first JTF generation. That means I was their first choice, of all the soldiers they could have picked, they saw something in me that made them decide I was best suited for the job. Same as Carole did when I was barely a Marine, same as the FFL recruiter did when he saw me on TV, same as every single person I ever worked with who called me ruthless, unstoppable and un-killable. I'm not some poor shmuck who got thrown in a position he can't handle, I'm a Black Operator who wants to be even better and I'm not going to quit until there's a red stripe on my goddamn right arm.

First things first, let's go have a drink.

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**Cadia**

**Valemo's Bunker Bar**

**Shadow Company's HQ**

The bar was filled to the brim with an intoxicated collection of soldiers, scholars and people somewhere between the two, all cheering and chanting completely unrelated things about honor and country or booze and women.

Not many people knew this, but Cadia's first colonists had been majorly Canadian and Australian emigrants from Earth, not really militaries, both country were never very war-like, but it is only by looking at those two country's history that one would understand Cadia as it now stood.

Australia was one of the most hostile ecosystem on the planet, host to over ninety percent of the Earth's venomous species and to some very large predators ranging from sharks to crocodiles. It's inhabitants were very much used to dangerous situations, even in mundane contexts, like swimming in the sea though knowing there were sharks barely a hundred meters further, or stumbling around a pond, looking for one's golf ball, with crocodiles sunbathing just a few steps further. This was nothing compared to the new threats humanity would face in the future, but it did create quite an unique population.

Canada was completely different, to the point it had been called Astralia for a while. Australia's polar opposite, it still put its inhabitants through severe trials even past the twenty first century, with temperatures that could cause limbs to fall off if uncovered, massive amounts of snow to be shoveled every day, every morning and six months a year, a chokingly wet climate when the snow finally melted off and very rich natural resources the locals would learn to harvest by themselves, be it mining, gathering or chopping, and the very widespread interest in wilderness survival and hunting, due to the lack of other local attraction.

On one side, the Australians had gotten used to their wildlife wanting them dead and the Canadians had adapted to their climate trying to kill them, making these two peoples some of the hardiest on Earth by some account, but it was only during the first and second world wars that the world would truly appreciate how this made them perfect soldiers.

More specifically, the battles of Amiens and Kapyong; during the first, both armies had joined forces to effectively massacre the superpower of the time, Germany, and earn themselves a place in the nightmares of every German soldiers that would enlist before the 1950s, while in the second one mixed Brigade, the Australian 3 RAR and Canadian 2 PPCLI, numbering about three thousand men, held the line against a Chinese Division, numbering above the thirty thousands.

They held the line for so long, when they called for fire support, the Allied HQ was genuinely surprised to find them still alive and holding. The battle ended with forty-seven dead on the Allied side and over a thousand for the Chinese.

So, it really made sense that their descendants, Cadians, would be amongst the best warfighters in the Imperium, despite most of them being pretty much ignorant of their legacy.

Shadow Company was a small but tightly knit group of warriors, historians and adventurers who had decided to embrace their origins, with the accord of Lord Castellan Creed, of course.

The Company did not see as much action as Kasrkin or Shock Troops, both because their level of education was rare in Imperial Guard units and because they preferred to solve problems without full deployments. Creed would sometimes send them information about planetary governors breaking one too many rules, Rogue Traders pushing their freedom a little too far. Things that did not warrant full blown military interventions but still needed taking care of.

Asymmetric warfare, as Colonel Irwin liked to call it, implied no uniform, concealed firearm when firearms were at all carried and quick but decisive applications of force. Nothing like the Assassinorum or the Astartes, but somewhere between the two. Sometimes they would arm loyalist groups and let them take out the governor, sometimes they would bribe pirates to attack rogue trader ships. And some times, they would just slip on carapace armor, whip out Hellguns and tear whole armies a new asshole, leaving any bystanders to wonder what had happened to the huge amount of armed men that used to walk around.

Like Kasrkins, the Shadow Company was classified by the Munitorum, but not as Grenadiers, given their more unconventional approach. They were registered as sanitary inspectors, given full clearance to exterminate any vermin they found.

Someone in the Munitorum had a sense of humor.

Right now, they were welcoming five new members, two Kasrkins, a tech priest and two office workers who'd used their free time to educate themselves and were now the closest things to scholars one could get without being an Adeptus Mechanicus.

Welcoming new members really just meant they were getting the three men and two women drunker that a Space Wolf Neophyte before tattooing the letters SC on each of their shoulders while they were passed out.

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**?**

?  


Many Khornate berserkers adopted nicknames with blood or gore in them, to honour the blood god. Vincent Alerius hated them all with a passion.

Although not technically a berserker himself, Vincent had always leaned on the Blood God's side; less chances of being tricked, turned into a walking bag of skak or ass raped. But his leanings had yet to make him as stupid as his fully Khornate brethren's, now chanting "Blood for the Blood God!" while their war master, some terminator marine that had been around since the great heresy, swung his chain axe at the servant of Chaos Undivided that had dared enter their home.

Their home was actually a strange pocket in the warp, shaped like a bloodied tundra with a red and evil eye in stead of moon.

He wanted to deliver a message, a business proposal. Of course, Aaron Bloodbringer was not going to listen.

Then, he would die in this crimsom clearing, amongst the dried corpses.

The former Alpha Legionnaire rolled away in an explosion of powdered bones and whipped out his Inferno pistol to melt the oversized Warlord's kneecap in two shots, further increasing his mobility advantage over the Terminator.

Bloodbringer swung around to behead the smaller foe, but Alerius ducked under the weapon and took four shots at the beserker's chest plate from a kneeling position, melting the eight pointed star welded over the imperial Aquila.

The Warlord tried to cut Alerius in half with an overhead swing, but the smaller Marine dodged again, recovering behind the large man and shooting him once in the back of both knee before targeting the power plant in the back.

Three shots were all he managed to squeeze out before being thrown back by the resulting explosion. Terminator suits were not especially vulnerable to this kind of attack, but the Inferno pistol was quite powerful, enough so that modern terminator marines would have died from the shots in the chest, but this model was older, sturdier, and its wearer much harder to kill, thus the necessity to make it go boom. Only the suit's boots remained.

Vincent then got back on his feet, holstered his pistol and turned to the hundred or so beserkers now cheering him. "Enough!" He roared, his voice carrying across the tundra like thunder. "You all serve the Blood God, so do I," he continued, the Warband slowly quieting down and listening to their new leader, "but look at yourselves, stuck here, killing each other, cheering on as your master is butchered. You are pathethic, gifted with great powers, but unable to use them, unable to bring Him the blood he demands!"

A Marine in the front line roared in anger and charged Alerius, who just shot him in the face before resuming his speech, "Under my leadership, you can fight worthy foes, spill more blood in a year than you did since you retreated to the eye of terror, but only if you follow my every orders to the letter." There were a few discontent murmurs, but most seemed pretty okay with the idea; let someone else handle the thinking and get them to the killing. Because this really was all they wanted, kill stuff, and this guy seemed quite adept at killing stuff and getting to stuff worth killing, like he'd gotten to them.

Plus, those who still had some functional neurons recognized the value of leadership that went beyond "Blood for the Blood God!"

Thus, an Alpha Legion reject found himself leading World Eaters to take revenge on the sons of malice.

Chaos indeed.


	13. Chapter 13

**Villa Militaria**

**February 15****th**

The whole class is dead silent, all leaning on their data-pads, and frantically inputting numbers in their calculators to

_Knowing that the mass accelerators of the Valkyrie Combat Rifle accelerate projectiles at 1.3% of lightspeed within the weapon's mass effect field, upon exiting the weapon and if fired in an Earth-like atmosphere, what is the speed of a standard issue munitions when it impacts a target two hundred meters away?_

Bloody fuckin' shit. Uh… I need to know what the weight of the projectile was before I can calculate anything…

Density of Tungsten… Nineteen point two five grams per cubic centimeter, the Valkyrie's ammunition is half that size, making it nine grams point something.

Now, nine grams shot at 3 897 301 meters per second and hitting the air… Would be atomized by the impact.

No, no no no! Mass effect field isn't hard vacuum! It still had air surrounding it, it just recovers its mass when leaving the gun, so, how does that affect the projectile's velocity?

By giving the middle finger to pretty much every law of physics I've ever been taught.

The ammunition will steadily loose velocity from air friction, or drag, the same way any projectile does, the air density is the same and its initial speed is already known, so all I need to know is how fast it…

Wait.

What is its velocity _when it impacts the target?_

Zero point zero meters per second. Standard issue bullets shatter on impact. Might not be the answer they were looking for, but that's the one they'll get.

Next question.

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**Villa Militaria**

**February 17****th**

Five in the morning is an awful time to be woken up without coffee on hand, so the sarge woke us at four and sent us all to the firing range in our underwear. Some of the kids around seem to try and cover themselves, males too, as it seems not everyone is used to the sight of female soldier in alliance issue undies. Me? I don't get much of a reaction, either I'm getting old, getting used to it or am just too tired for my synapses to go that low.

The range is huge, fifty lanes at least and half as many tables, all covered with weapons and thermal clips. It looks old, though, dusty brown all over and with weeds growing from cracks in the concrete walls and floor.

I think we're in the right hand side of the villa's courtyard. Not that I've seen much of the villa in the time I've been here; we're always stuck in between tall walls with razor wires on top of them, like now, and all I can see are bits and pieces of the white and red marble structure.

The sarge is in full dress uniform, not that he'd clash with us that much; beyond the gray hairs, he looks as though and healthy as any of these kids, including myself.

We form the ranks before he's done yelling , except those few who fell back asleep on ammo crates. They get whacked with telescoping batons and hurriedly take their places in the formation.

The Sarge stiffens a yawn and clears his throat, "Today, my worst nightmare comes true; we're giving you maggots live ammo and actual guns!" He graps an instructor by the sleeve as she passes by and drag her closer. I can hear enough to understand he's asking her who's genius idea this was, to which she shrugs and he just shakes his head. "Find me some coffee, please, never give a Marine loaded weapons when he's not had his morning coffee."

Hou-rah, man.

"Sinclair!"

Huh? What did I do?

The sarge is looking straight at me, past the four lines of recruit between us. I'm not very tall, so I just see pieces of him behind shaved heads. "Sir?" I bark, doing my best to stand straighter.

"Grab a Viper from the table and show these kids how it's done!"

I nod sharply and walk over to a table on my right. The M-97 Viper is folded on itself and not easily recognizable, but I'm not that rusty.

As soon as I touch the grip, the stock pops out and the barrel folds forward, locking in position with an hollow click. Last thing to pop out is the scope; it hums out of the frame and both lens extend before retracting slightly, adjusting themselves.

"First lane!" The Sarge barks.

I head over to the lane with an I engraved on the floor and aim downrange. Holographic targets, dummies animated and held together by mass effect fields. Might be cardboard or plastic, but the hologram is seamless and they all look like Cerberus Shock Troops to me.

"Fire at will!"

I peek in the scope and line it up between two red slits in the trooper's helmet. The rifle cracks and so does the helmet.

Two centimeters off on the right. I didn't account for wind velocity.

The next target, still just standing there, motionless, I drop with two quick shots to the center of mass. The chest.

The last trooper gets a new breathing hole where his nose should be.

The three holograms vanish and I pop out the heat sink. Didn't hear the bell yet, meaning we're not done.

Five Asari commandos take shape a hundred meters down the range, in the middle of some kind of rubble field. Two hundred meters behind that field is a concrete block with holes in it, mimicking windows and doors. Probably will be some snipers in there later on.

For now, let's get the Asaris; they're hoping around like rabbits, shooting their holographic weapons over and around concrete blocks. I think they're shooting at me, but it's all just light show and there's no telltale whiz of bullets in the air, so I relax and scope one of the smurfettes, rolling from one cover to another.

A split second of exposition is all I need; I release my breath and stroke the trigger. Not squeeze, no press, just a nudge and the hologram's chest is shattered to pieces.

I just have to drift the scope right for an expressionless cyan face to appear in my crosshair, looking at me down a scope of its own. The scope is the size of a needle head at this magnification and the face is about as big as my thumb, but I line it up and squeeze off a shot that travels right through the lens and into the Asari's eye.

This one was two-five-oh meters away; fifty meters behind her team mates and in between the rubbles and building. Seems important, but I don't have time to waste. Whatever it means will come up on its own.

Something purple flashes in my sight and I quickly track the commando, sprinting across the field.

There's no pattern in how the concrete blocks from the rubble field are laid around, so I just take a chance and squeeze out two shots. First one goes off in the distance, second one is stopped by the concrete.

Third is the charm that blasts the hologram's head clean off.

One more to go.

The last one is holding an N7 operator in full armor as a human meat shield. Apparently, this is meant to make me hesitate. I don't; the shot goes right through both holograms.

If it were an actual human, I'd have kneecapped him then shot the Asari, but what the fuck?

The bell rings and I fold my gun back. Everyone is giving me weird looks, but the sarge seems about to laugh his ass off.

"Come on, maggots!" He roars at the recruits, "Get the fuck moving!"

And fifty of them set up at their own shooting lanes with different types of rifles. The others get to have some coffee when the instructor comes back with the mobile cantina. The cantina is like an ice cream truck, except not selling ice cream and VI-controlled to follow the cooks around.

Don't care. It's got a coffee machine.

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**From: Admiral Tali'Zorah Vas Normandy**

**To: Councillor Jeff Moreau **

**Object: RE: What do you think?**

Don't get me wrong, I trust Liara's judgement implicitly and I know she has access to far more information that both of us together, but are you sure this is wise? I understand we need to find out more about what we're dealing with, trust me, but this idea of hers puts immense resources and power in the hands of the ACR and I'm not sure I trust the council with that, even with you and Reegar in it.

But if you're going to do this, I think you should give them some of the best equipment you can, so I'll send over some technicians and Geth platforms to help the ships, we also worked on new symbiotic environmental suits, but they didn't work out for Quarian, only Drell, Asari and Humans could wear the things, I'll send you the files attached to this mail, but the concept is very simple; It uses a mix of Reaper, Collector and Geth technology and link up with the user's nervous system, becoming a second skin of sort, we built them to house Geth programs that can handle multiple onboard systems like barriers, shields, cloaking, adrenaline injectors, hacking protocols and synthetic muscles.

The technology was made to be extremely adaptive, self-repairing and capable of integrating foreign tech, feature I believe your men could use. We don't have many, they never made it into mass production, but I'll send over those we do have.

Stay safe.

Tali.


	14. Chapter 14

**Villa Militaria**

**June 10****th**

The news are… Not bad overall, but it doesn't look very good.

First time I get to surf the Extranet ever since I got here, everyone in the company is scattered in the library right now, doing the same thing I am.

Many different news from many different sources.

Kalysa Al'Jilani, one of my favourite reporters, is on Tuchanka right now, looking into the reports of Tau scientists trying to re-create the Genophage. She doesn't sugar coat things and makes sure we know everything she writes is her own opinion. I read some articles from her when she was starting out, barely more than gossip, but now she uses the scientific concept of Heisenberg to justify her lack of neutrality, explaining that you cannot study something without being part of it and seeing it from a limited point of view, so writing this as though you are unbiased is much more dishonest than just saying what you saw and what you think about it, make it clear which side you're on so people are warned not to take everything you say at face value.

**(Shameless Author Note: That's why I write the way I do.)**

Anyway, Spectre Kaidan Alenko was sent to investigate , so we'll get the full story soon enough.

If it's true, however, this means war with our new pompous friends.

Other than that, there's the science article on the differences between Tau technology and our own, although neither of us has allowed the other much access to their best tech, we both managed to salvage some samples and what came out of it is that they are far more advanced than we are in general, but our stuff is all reverse engineered from a technology thousands of years ahead of anything they can ever produce, so anything involving mass effect tech gives us quite an edge, but anything else; plasma, construction techniques, targeting AIs and metal alloys, it's all leaning in their favor.

Then, there's talk about Quarians creating a Reaper-like Geth platform to use as frigate… And super-heavy ground support. They won't confirm or deny it, but I've also seen a few blogs bashing the Geth for aggressively harvesting moons, unoccupied planets and even making whole ferrous asteroid belts disappear, so I guess they're up to something.

A war's coming. I've spent enough time in this academy learning about history of warfare to figure that one out.

The guy using the terminal to my right, Alex, I believe, curses under his breath a waves me over when I try to see what's going on.

I don't have friends in the company, a few people I enjoy working with, granted, but Alex isn't one of them.

I roll my chair across the two meters gap and check out his screen.

New ship specs were adopted by the Citadel, says a ship needs to be over five kilometers in length and lots of irrelevent shit about weight and crew. Point is, frigates are now designated _light_ covettes, destroyers are downgraded to the rank of frigates, cruisers to destroyers, battleships to cruisers and dreadnought to battleship, so everyone is now having a fucking fit and building up their fleet to the new regulations, which allow ten times as many ships of each type as it used to and legalize the creation of gigantic warships capable of cracking a planet open.

Yeah, council is getting ready for war, no doubts about that. Not sure I like the idea of bigger ships, though, our armies were trained to fight Reapers, we're used to fighting smart, not fighting rough, even the Krogan have developed tactics that do not imply just standing there and soaking up damage.

But then, if that derelict we fought on was just a cruiser and we're going to be clashing with the blue guys, we'll need bigger guns.

"Yup," I nod, pushing myself back, "listen good and study well, they'll need to crew those beasts, one of us might even get to captain one." I joke, returning to my console.

They're actually training us to serve as crewmembers and how to interpret ship-to-ship combat. I'm good at it, but I'm still a ground pounder, not a fly boy, I don't see myself captaining a ship or even a simple ground unit.

Well, I could see myself doing it, the leadership and strategic analysis class is fairly simple and I aced it on my first month, but, you know…

That's something I like here; individual progression. In the Legion and the Marines, we progressed as a unit. Here, however, the physical and combat exercises are the only thing we do military, everything else is closer to an academy; you progress at your own rate, choose where you want to specialize and can complete a hundred classes in the time your company spends to complete ten.

Or, in my case, finish two years worth of schooling and evaluations in four months.

Sure, I cheated somewhat; Back before I got to the academy, I already had partial N7 training and full clearance…Meaning I had access to most of their files, including aptitude tests.

Hey, I don't want to be stuck in this academy when the shit storm hits, you have any idea how high Spec Ops get per mission at the beginning of a war like that, when the funds are good, intels solid and brass confident?

A shitload. And with this little refresher, I'm even tougher than I used to be; I can hack security locks, maintain any type of weapon known to the Alliance, can fly a Kodiak Shuttle, can create IEDs using thermal clips and Eezo cores from discarded weapons and that's without talking about ranks; Major Adam Sinclair.

I was a meant son of a bitch before, now, I'm a dangerous killer. And I still got six months to go before the company's done, although they're talking about pushing me into duty sooner, since I already have combat experience with N7 level operators and council special forces.

Promotion is the only issue here, from the looks of it; I'm satisfied at Major, but they want to make me a full blown Commander, for some reason. But Commander is a bit too much for me and I keep on asking to be given the final test; N7 field deployment.

Don't think I'm better than any of these kids, however, I cheated, yet six of them performed just as good as I did: four girls, two guys, none of them older than twenty-five, all of them from Zhu's Hope. Go figure.

I stood up for them in a locker room fight when one of the recruits accused them of being indoctrinated, told the paranoid little shit to go find some actual evidence or go hide in a hole. Had he given me a single good reason to believe his bullshit, I'd have sided with him, but he didn't, he just said they were talking to each other with their mind and it meant they were husks or whatever.

When he tried to get violent, I broke his arm in six places. Augmentations might have methabolized by now, I'm still a pile of muscle attached to hardened bones and a combat veteran.

Somehow, this made me the entitled spokesman of their little club and they keep coming to me when they want to request something of the academy, although they're not hounding me like groupies, they just look me up when they need something or have something I need and help each others.

It's odd, really, they feel like a single person, always knowing what the others did and what they asked me even though there is no way they'd all know. But I like them, they get shit done and work together flawlessly.

Speaking of which, something else they wanted me to help them with…

The terminal opens a new tab and I place a search on something called a Thorian.

This is no mere search engine, this is a military terminal used by an N6 student with Joint Task Force 139 credentials, yet I still get a block with ExoGeni Corporation's logo on it. 'Restricted files', it says.

Reaper-code derived infiltration software, I say.

The blank page is replaced by a whole report on something called 'Species 37'.

Big plant that covered a whole colony and enslaved its inhabitants with spores or something, only known way to undo indoctrination is through these spores, but it leaves you with a psychic link to anyone else that has spores in their brains. Explains a lot, I guess, but that's not what the kids wanted me to check.

More recent files say something about it being the only known way to keep people safe from… What's that? Chaos influence? Whatever, it says that although most people do not have the psi profile and sufficient Element Zero in the organism will counteract the 'Radiations', some people are at risk of being... Possessed? What's this? The exorcism?

In any event, they note that Eezo cannot be surgically added to the organism and that anyone showing sign of chaos contamination must be injected with a variant of the spore right away.

Variant… I nose around a little and find a list of different genetic variations of the spore, thousands of them, all with the same effect, but not linking to other strains, to prevent… Uh… What does 'Cerebral Necrosis' even mean?

Well, I guess that's it; all they said is that I could most likely use that intel at some point in the future.

Guess that's good to know, but I'll have to find out more about Chaos before I do anything with it, and ExoGeni has no information on that.

They did close shop six years back, the block they used must have been in place a long time, the information too…

Wonder why I never heard of it then… If it's such a big issue and we've known about it for six years, shouldn't someone be telling everyone else what's going on? What to look out for, where to receive treatment, so on.

This looks like some conspiracy theory bullshit, but I still search the word in public access servers, to be safe.

Chaos is a very popular word, apparently, used in many situations to describe many things, but some poking around gets me to a forum about religious experiences where someone lists the 'Dark gods of chaos'.

There's the lord of decay, the prince of excess, the changer of ways and the blood… God?

_Blood for the blood god! Skull for the skull throne!_

Silly sentence with no real meaning that has been in my mind whenever I set foot on a planet or moon or whatever, then bugs me for weeks after I've gotten back in space.

It is now; I get dreams, hear voices, smell things, the works. Started straight after day one, kept on bothering me ever since, although I didn't pay much attention to it until now.

I type it in the search bar and get quite a few results, mostly news reports and blogs about people murdering their whole family, co-workers and pets while chanting this, or just madman ravings on blog spaces no one bothers to read. Never happens on ships or space stations, from what I can see, and never to biotics.

Didn't ExoGeni say something about Eezo counteracting the… what is it anyway? Demon? Indoctrination? Mind control? Whatever it is, the pattern is there; whenever I'm in an Eezo rich environment, like a space ship or station, everything is as normal as it gets for me, but as soon as I'm on the ground or in a ship that does not use mass effect core, I get the dreams, the voices and the headaches.

Bad sign, huh?


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Lack time to proof read, any beta readers interested? **

**Cerberus thing, a last minute addition. Was going to create all new group, but existing resources should suffice. **

My groupies are all assembled in a circle around the table as the doc completes his checkup. I'm healthy, no surprise there, my eye is starting to recover –still red, though- and the scar is healed completely, but my brain waves are off the chart and I've got tiny tumors in my frontal lobe that seem to be radioactive. Removal without further information could possibly kill me. Great.

One of the kids, I call him Two, hands me my shirt back and I cover myself before jumping to my feet.

"What do you guys think I should do now?" They figured out the problem, maybe they have a solution for it.

One is a tall black guy with short hairs and about as much muscle as I do, Two seems like your average book worm; short, skinny and with large dark spots under his eyes, Three is short, female and Asian, very discreet and, well, there's nothing else to the girl, really, Four has brown hairs, I think, maybe it's called something else, I don't know, she's tall though, a bit taller than I am, but I'm no giant and neither is she, Five looks a lot like Four, only not as tall and with a rounder silhouette, although she's not chubby. Could be, were she not running Spec Ops drills with us all the time.

Six, a blonde girl about thirty years old, speaks for the others most of the time, now isn't an exception, "We already showed you the only way to cure yourself, you must only accept it."

Right, spore thing and all that. Yay.

I'm not so hot about that idea, not only because I like being me and knowing that I am, but also because I hate people.

Well, I like people, but only in short burst. They're fun for short periods of time; about a minute, a minute and a half. Then, I just need to get the fuck out of there, too much talking, too much self-centered monologues trying to disguise as conversations, too much stupid bullshit. I have a very low tolerance level to bullshit.

Truth of the matter is, everyone knows they're being self-centered pricks, that they only do things that either serve their purpose or make them feel warm and fuzzy inside, but they sugar coat it with bullshit and I always found manure hard to swallow.

Everyone always try to be someone else and practically cove themselves in bullshit; expensive clothes, jewels, facial surgeries, tattoos, makeup, haircut. All bullshit, and we all know it, but everyone smiles and nod at it like all these lies are perfectly honest.

Makes me want to shoot everyone in sight.

Then again, so do Elcor weather forecast, Hanar… Uh… Just Hanars at large, and people who talk at the theater, so maybe I'm just borderline psychotic.

Let's see if the Colonel can help me. With Chaos, psychosis can wait.

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**From: **Col. E. Lloyd

**To:** MAJ. A. Sinclair

**Object:** Medical issue

I received the files you sent me and your physical evaluation. Good work on figuring this shit out, son, you made this academy proud today, no matter what happens next.

Let's get straight to what happens next: Thorian spores were used to ward off Chaos until three years ago, when the first colonists to be implanted with them lost all sign of individuality and began to lose cognitive abilities when far apart from other subjects. Somewhat like the Geth, really, so unless you're tempted by the whole Borg collective thing, I would advise against that.

Then again, the whole 'We are Legion' bullshit probably does not appeal to you either, so I pulled a few strings and found out the Salarians could possibly give you a hand, so I'm officially promoting you to Commander and will be sure whatever shit the Council asks you to do is considered as your N7 field initiation. You never do things by the rules, do you? I guess that's what got you so much attention lately…

Don't expect them to play nice, they're still pissed about Shepard curing the Genophage, but they also have plans for you, use it as leverage.

Your little fan club, which you must already know to be some of the original colonists I mentioned above, will be coming along, as they seem to like you, somehow, and they're learning way too fast for me to hold them back here. Consider them your first unit. I know you barely know them and they are a creepy bunch, but they'll have your back, I can promise you that.

Honored to have had you in my school, kiddo, even though it didn't go as planned.

Don't die.

Lloyd.

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**Citadel**

**June 11****th**

The two C-sec officers give me wary looks as a third one on the other side of the window checks my credentials.

JTF 139 operators never leave their armors or weapons, but I'm going around in jeans, leather jacket and with only an M-77 Paladin sidearm in my shoulder holster. Not quite the same thing, really.

They didn't revoke my ACR Special Forces credentials, no explanations given, but I don't mind, as it gives me almost as much leeway as a Spectre. Namely, the right to carry a weapon anywhere I want and to book high-priority appointments with VIPs, although my low rank doesn't really place me high on their priority.

Right now, I want to talk to the Salarian Councillor; not the kind of shit I expected to be granted on the next day, but someone somewhere likes me and they cut right through the red tape.

The checkup doesn't turn up anything strange. The others –I still don't know their individual names, and they deflected the question every time, so I just gave them numbers- are also scanned at other checkpoints.

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Miranda Lawson yawned and leaned backward until her back popped twice. She then craned her neck and earned a long and satisfying series of cracks and pops.

It felt good to be away from that bloody bunker, even if it was replaced by a damned metal cockroach…"You'll bust your joints." Oriana scolded from the opposite seat, earning an amused smile from her genetic twin.

"Maybe," the Cerberus Operative agreed, "But it's totally worth it."

They were in Cerberus uniforms, in an Alliance shuttle heading for the Citadel. Weirder things had happened, though not often.

Shepard's mother had contacted them, them and every single Cerberus cell that remained, with an offer they couldn't refuse.

Back in the days, Cerberus was an Alliance agency meant to do the unspeakable things humanity's survival required; kidnapping, murders, live subject experiments, torture, the works. This kept going until the Alliance got an embassy on the citadel, after which they disavowed their guard dog and branded them terrorists. Cerberus should have disbanded at that point, but many top level operative still felt humanity needed protection and took it upon themselves to provide it.

Thus, the new Cerberus was born, led by the Illusive Man for years and brought to an immense level of power and ressources, rivaling even the Salarian STG and Council Special Tactics and Reconnaissance.

After the Reapers were disabled and Shepard disappeared, the Illusive Man sent one final order to his troops before shooting himself in the head with the biggest pistol available. That order was simple, clear and very much definitive: "Hide, build up our forces and wait until we are needed again, don't repeat my mistakes."

Cerberus was to pull back, cease all active operations and focus on recruiting and rebuilding. The commanders that disobeyed were sold out by their colleagues and wiped out by the Joint Task Force 139 and very few of the new recruits were made aware of just who they were working for, as very few people knew anything about Cerberus beyond name and propaganda.

The remaining cells were collectively renamed to just that, The Cells and the focus on military development slowly shifted to medical, technological and economical aspects as well as surveillance and monitoring.

And the Lawson sisters were the ones making sure this new dormant beast was healthy and docile for whoever the Alliance decided to put in charge of its new guard dog.

Shepard had summoned them to the Citadel for just that purpose, saying that after eight years of searching, she had finally found a suitable candidate, a man that would get the approval of both the Council and the Security Committee. The only person Miranda could think of that both assosiations of bureaucrats would agree on was Evelyn Shepard, so she had high hopes for this meeting.

But she currently had a massive headache over supply lines in the terminus systems that even the excitement couldn't bury.

Batarians were angry over the destruction of their homeworld and fleet and they were taking it out on any foreign vessels they could find. The Vorcha were running rampant, at least numbering in the millions on any planet close to a mass relay, ten times more on planets that didn't take active measures to control their birth rate, and with the Krogan flourishing as well, this often led to brutal conflicts that kept traders away and operators in hiding, severely restricting her options.

Then, their sleeper agents all over the galaxy lacked funds, intel and instructions, enough so that a significant number of them ended up turning themselves over to C-Sec, the Shadow Broker or whoever had some authority where they were hiding.

Some of them were executed on the spot, some thrown in a dark cell never to be heard of again and a few committed suicide when they realized forgiveness would not come. These men and women had been standing on the wrong side of their ideals and were now treated as animals because of it.

Miranda held no love for Cerberus or anyone willing to work for them, but many believed they were actually helping by serving Cerberus, kept in the dark by their superiors and blinded by charismatic speeches from the Illusive Man. She used to be one of them, same as Jacob, Kelly, Hawthorne and Gardner. Good people worked for Cerberus, good people that only ever did good deeds, but would still be treated as the lowest scum if they ever tried to atone.

They needed someone who could talk to them the way the Illusive Man did, make the hard choices and think outside the box. Unfortunately, neither of the Lawson sisters quite fit the bill. They were expert managers, could coordinates large scale deployments of resources with pinpoint accuracy and flawless discipline, but they just couldn't decide on where to best deploy these resources or how to get everyone to agree with their decision.

This would be that candidate's job.


End file.
